Gaisford
In this 1920s picture the cottage building behind the cart houses the Post Office today. Next to it is Gaisford House,
designed and built in the 1870s by Thomas David for his brother, Samuel Sinclair David, who followed his father into the 'druggist' profession.
It was named Gaisford after the Davids' grandmother, Mary Gaisford who hailed from Berkshire.
The Post Office moved over to Exeter House when DM Jenkins retired as Postmaster, but then moved back into the same building when Susan Siggery became
Postmaster who runs it today.
A 1904 advert states Gaisford was a 'Post Office, Dispensing Chemist, Stationer, Bookseller & Tea Dealer,' and an 'Agent for Huntley & Palmers Reading Biscuits.'
That's Reading the place, not biscuits to eat while reading.
Kitty John (Devonshire House) worked here as a telegraph operator in 1953 when she was 17 and is one of the few left alive who
remembers Dylan - 'He often came in with outsiders to buy cheese and wine. You can relax in Laugharne. On a lovely day you can see the curlews.
It must have helped him write.'
Here's Gaisford House in the 1920s when the building next door burned down. The shell was rebuilt and is now the Post Office.
Here's Gaisford (above)
and the Post Office (below) today
In November '53 Kitty (pictured in the white uniform in the middle of the above pic) attended a BBC radio broadcast in
the Memorial Hall where Dylan's evocative love letter to Laugharne, known now as 'The Laugharne Prose' was aired, and broadcaster
Wyn Jones interviewed locals, including Caitlin Thomas.
One of Kitty's colleagues at the Post Office received a telegram stating that Dylan was in a coma in New York. He ran up to the hall to tell 'Mrs Dylan'.
Kitty remembers Caitlin gasping and running out. By the early 60s it was the Milk Wood Cafe run by Megan Jenkins, and today is divided into flats,
including one where Megan's son Alun lives.
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