Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas

first broadcast 1954






MRS WILLY NILLY:

From Manchester House, Llareggub. Sole Prop: Mr Mog Edwards (late of Twll), Linendraper, Haberdasher, Master Tailor, Costumier. For West End Negligee, Lingerie, Teagowns, Evening Dress, Trousseaux, Layettes. Also Ready to Wear for All Occasions. Economical Outfitting for Agricultural Employment Our Speciality, Wardrobes Bought. Among Our Satisfied Customers Ministers of Religion and J .P's. Fittings by Appointment. Advertising Weekly in the Twll Bugle. Beloved Myfanwy Price my Bride in Heaven,

MOG EDWARDS

I love you until Death do us part and then we shall be together for ever and ever. A new parcel of ribbons has come from Carmarthen to-day, all the colours in the rainbow. I wish I could tie a ribbon in your hair a white one but it cannot be. I dreamed last night you were all dripping wet and you sat on my lap as the Reverend Jenkins went down the street. I see you got a mermaid in your lap he said and he lifted his hat. He is a proper Christian. Not like Cherry Owen who said you should have thrown her back he said. Business is very poorly. Polly Garter bought two garters with roses but she never got stockings so what is the use I say. Mr Waldo tried to sell me a woman's nightie outsize he said he found it and we know where. I sold a packet of pins to Tom the Sailors to pick his teeth. If this goes on I shall be in the workhouse. My heart is in your bosom and yours is in mine. God be with you always Myfanwy Price and keep you lovely for me in His Heavenly Mansion. I must stop now and remain, Your Eternal, Mog Edwards.



observations: Another visit to Llareggub and Under Milk Wood. 

Mog Edwards is “a draper mad with love”. This play is full of amazing, lyrical, musical descriptions and lists of items and he tells us that he loves Miss Price
more than all the flannelette and calico, candlewick, dimity, crash and merino, tussore, cretonne, crepon, muslin, poplin, ticking and twill in the whole Cloth Hall of the world.
He is doing better than Mr Pugh, the Dr Crippen of Llareggub, who has bought a book called Lives of the Great Poisoners and reads it while dining with his wife, telling her it is Lives of the Great Saints.

Links on the blog: Earlier posts on the play give more details. The description is something like the shop Joyce’s Leopold Bloom liked in Ulysses.

The picture is of a similar shop in Builth Wells, and comes – as did a previous photo for an Under Milk Wood post - from the National Library of Wales. A letter comes for Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard ‘all the way from Builth Wells’ in the play.

Comments

  1. Moira - I've always thought Dylan Thomas one of the more versatile of writers this is just another example of that. And I do like the humour showing in this one. Thanks for sharing it.

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  2. What a lovely photo. How do you find them?

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  3. Thanks both. Tracy, I do very much enjoy looking for the pictures: when I started the blog I thought that would be a minor part of it, but it's the key element I think. Because I'm doing it all the time, I have lots of images in my head, and often I know exactly what I'm looking for. There is so much great stuff out there on the net...

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