Bards and Bohemians

These stones look old but they have only been here since 1936, the year Fishguard first hosted the National Eisteddfod of Wales, an annual cultural event focussing on music and literature. Choirs, singers, musicians and poets compete (all in Welsh) for prestigious honours. The high point of week-long event is the crowning of the winning poet, which takes place in the centre of this circle, the gorsedd, with a ceremony carried out by robed druids attended by dancing maidens, harpists, and trumpet fanfares.

The druidic rites seem ancient and arcane. In fact they were invented only a couple of hundred years ago. The idea of a music and poetry festival was a revival of something much older, a collective gathering to strengthen tribal bonds. Since 1861 the annual national eisteddfod has taken place in towns all over Wales and in each one a stone circle like this is erected from 12 locally-sourced boulders. It remains in situ to mark the occasion. In the centre is the Logan stone upon which the Archdruid stands to make his proclamations.

If you don't speak Welsh and don't go a bundle on Victorian druidery then the whole business tends to be rather opaque and exclusive. In 1936 a couple of visitors opted out of the eisteddfod and spent the afternoon assessing Fishguard's numerous taverns instead. Their names were Augustus John, the flamboyant and notoriously philandering society painter (born in Pembrokeshire) and Dylan Thomas, then an impecunious, struggling young poet from Swansea. Both staying with a mutual friend, the writer Richard Hughes, in the Carmarthenshire village of Laugharne, they had joined forces to drive to Fishguard with a friend of Dylan's and a young artist's model who was Augustus's current squeeze. She, Caitlin Mcnamara, had already met Dylan in London and the two were mutually attracted. Leaving Fishguard well oiled, tensions within the party mounted and when they stopped on the road for further refreshment Caitlin's suitors came to blows. The well-heeled painter drove off leaving Dylan stranded. However it was he who got the girl, and married her.