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Dylan Thomas might be best associated with laugharne, but Richard Hughes was of his time the most famous writer in Wales-maybe the whole of Britain after the first radio play- and he lived in Laugharne for 20 years. Friends with Augustus John, William Clough-Ellis and Robert Graves he wrote only a few novels, High Wind to Jamaica his best known, made into a film. He is credited with the authorship of the world's first radio play, Danger, broadcast on January 15, 1924.
Hughes was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and, in the United States, an honorary member of both the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1946.
His wife Frances, had Caitlin Thomas to stay frequently during the 2nd World War-Hughes was in Bristol at the admiralty and Dylan Thomas was making a few films for Strand films.
Hughes epic was the trilogy The Human Predicament, The Fox in the Attic (1961) and The Wooden Shepherdess (1973), were only complete when he died-the latter is not complete. An account, fictional, but based on real characters, well worth reading. The Lilly library in the USA acquired most of his diaries and letters, as of yet not on-line, but they quote :
"Correspondents include: George Charles Henry Victor Paget, Marquis of Anglesey, Iris Barry, Pamela Bianco, Joseph Hillyer Brewer, David Garnett, Caroline Glyn, Charles Johnson, Margaret Moore Kennedy, John Masefield, Cedric Morris, Nancy Nicholson, Peter Quennell, Lancelot de Giberne Sieveking, Sir John Collings Squire, Lady Amabel Williams-Ellis, Sir Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis and Elizabeth Wiskemann. "
May be a myth but I was told by some-one who knew the family that Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful visited Hughes.
Hughes was a significant Welsh author, slightly out of fashion, but his works are worth reading. |
