Thomas, Dylan

beginning "When Mr Watt-Ewers", a comic song describing a paradisiacal public house called "the Liberty Flipperty gibbetty Liberty Hall - Hotel", 44 lines, 1 page, 4to, written in pencil on the verso of a compliments slip addressed to Thomas from the magazine Poetry and Music, with a note in blue ink ("This little song was written in Henneky's Long Bar High Holburn by Dylan Thomas in 1951"), slight staining, 15mm tear not affecting text

Maureen Colegrove, wife of Reginald Colegrove, printer, of Oxford; their daughter Anne (d. 2007), wife of Frederick Jarvis

The Complete Poems of Dylan Thomas, ed. John Goodby (2014), pp.193-195

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"...Oh, all the drinks were free
(and cigarettes as well)
In Mr Watts-Ewars'
Brand-new hotel -

There were no set hours
There were no decrees
And nobody shouted
Time Gentlemen Please..."

A high-spirited comic song written in a back-room bar describing the opening of a wondrous pub whose landlord provides an endless supply of free drinks. With its word-play ("Watts-Ewers", for example, is a pun on the familiar drinker's enquiry, "What's yours?") and simple rhythms, it is in a similar vein to the songs in Under Milk Wood, which was being written at about the same time. Thomas wrote this poem on one of his regular trips to London in one of the city's most historic drinking establishments; there has been a pub at this site on High Holborn for nearly 600 years and Henneky's, now known as the Cittie of York, still retains its long bar.