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Sea View

This was Dylan Thomas' 2nd home in Laugharne from 1938-1940. He couldn't avoid the second world war, '...even trembling on the edge of Laugharne'. Dylan was productive here, writing of Laugharne being, '...this cockled city... sweet and quiet... so slow and prettily sad'.

Map Of Love and Portrait of The Artist As A Young Dog were published in 1940, but war prevailed and sales were poor.

In July 1940 debts forced the family to leave. Dylan went to London to script war films and Caitlin went to friends in Newquay

Caitlin (with Dylan outside Seaview c.1938) wrote that Sea View represented, '...the happiest two years of our lives'. They left everything behind, including, it would seem, the heart of their marriage, borne out by Dylan's poem, 'Into her lying down head', about his wife's infidelity.

Bertha Williams helped out at Sea View when the Thomas family were there. 'He never spoke of his work and loved Laugharne. I can't believe he did what he did in America. That wasn't the Dylan we knew'.

This painting is of Dylan in Sea View
by Rupert Shephard

Constructed in the early 1800s the owner wanted the tallest building in town, taller even than the castle, but a great storm blew off the top storey. Its tall thin exterior with no window on the reverse, lead to painter Augustus John describing it as, 'a doll's house'. Below is a pic of Tudor Williams standing outside. He was the father of Billy and Brown's landlord Ebie Williams. He owned several properties in Laugharne and lived across the road from Sea View.

In the 1890s Sea View was home to Laugharne Rugby Club, and also a photographer's studio, and in the early 1900s it was a private school.

It has been renovated recently, but the painting of it by Andrew Douglas-Forbes captured it as most Laugharnies will remember, when it looked like it would fall down.

The cement mixer in the photograph was bought by Steve's daughter, Roxanne, to facilitate work on the house. Steve sold it for beer money. Here is the house as it looked at that time.

Sometime in the 1960s it was bought by Ted and Gladys Treacy. Ted was of Irish decent but from Pontyberem where he was a miner. He went to London and worked for a Thermal Lancing company.

Ted managed to sneak a thermal lance off the premises and used it to crack safes alongside gangland criminals. Having made his money, he left London for Laugharne. Apparently, there is a house in North West London with treasure buried under the garden path. He also had a spirit still in the Sea View shed.

Their son Steve Treacy used to run a tee shirt printing company from Raven Hall. He remembered the first time he came down from London to live at Sea View, aged 18. He wore long blond hair and a cream suit, not a look the locals were used to.

Sundays were dry then, but someone told him he could get a drink in Brown's Hotel. He knocked the door and all was quiet. He knocked again. Marisa Watts opened the door and he asked if he could come in. She looked at him for a while then opened the door. Steve went through the bar door and was surprised to see the place was jam packed with silent drinkers. He asked for a Gin & Tonic and some ice, at a time when men only drank ale. Marisa gave him a glare and went into the kitchen returning with a small ice cube on a teaspoon. 'You're from that London', she said.

Later Steve joked that Sea View was going to be 'turned into a refuge for poets and drunks', and this fake news story made the Daily Mail.

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