Unweaving Rainbows

[steepholm]

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

I don't suppose I'm the first person who, on reading the opening lines of Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales, has been inspired to check the Met. Office records. At any rate, I have joined their company, and can report that the Christmases of 1920 (when Thomas was six) and 1926 (when he was twelve) were both notable for the lack of snow in the Swansea area.

In December 1920, "abnormally mild weather [...] set in on the 18th and continued until the end of the year." The report adds that "rain was general on Boxing Day" - a nice echo of Joyce's "snow was general all over Ireland", I think. December 1926 too was unusual, this time for being "the driest December in the past 43 years": only about a quarter of average precipitation for the month fell in England and Wales. This is not a promising setting for six days and nights of continuous snow at the Thomas household.

So, full marks for an atmospheric evocation, Dylan, but bottom of the class for meteorology. This is why you should never write poetry without a licence.

Comments

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Was there any year in his childhood when there was a heavy fall of snow like that? I remember a few such in my childhood, but I couldn't tell you with great accuracy how old I was. Old enough to slide down a hill in a roasting pan, that's all. (I think I was the one who lost my mother's roasting pan out sledding, but it might have been one of the other kids.)

There was a terrific earthquake in Seattle which I've always thought I remembered, but it turns out I was not quite two and a half at the time, so I probably just remember being told about my reaction. Oddly enough, my son was about two and a half when we had our next really big earthquake.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Was there any year in his childhood when there was a heavy fall of snow like that?

Good question! I checked, and the Decembers between 1920 and 1926 were all uneventful - but I can confirm that in 1927 (when he was an awkwardly disyllabic 13) snow really did fall for a good week, beginning on Christmas Eve.

The Dylan Thomas Society (I'm sure there must be one) shall hear of this.