Truant Years: Going (and Not Going) to School

Abstract

‘As a product of Mirador School’, writes James Davies, when young Dylan arrived at Swansea Grammar School in September 1925, ‘he was one of the worst-educated entrants’.² More serious than this, however, was the fact that, after a brief period of adjustment during which he submitted half-heartedly to the academic expectations of the school’s curriculum, he appears to have embarked on a career of mental and physical truancy that was indulged and sometimes even facilitated by the masters and by the Head, Trevor Owen.³ ‘I was self-educated at the local Grammar School where I did no work at all and failed all examinations’, Thomas would boast to Glyn Jones in 1934.⁴ Paul Ferris recalls one of the masters, Morris Williams (John Morys Williams), telling him that Dylan managed to be sick in bed whenever examination time came round — it ‘was a standing joke in the masters’ common room’.⁵ Neglectful of every subject except English (at which he excelled), Thomas was allowed to do exactly what he liked, to come and go as he pleased and to read (and refuse to read) what he chose. Not long after his arrival at the school, the study of English, acting, and the school magazine were his only interests — to which he would later add debating.⁶ He was, as Ferris says, ‘ludicrously bad’ when it came to every other subject⁷ — which, of course, was the point: ever anxious to impress, and like most talented children already overindulged with adult praise, Thomas simply did not want to compete where he could not excel.

Oxford I sing, though in untutored tones, alack!

I heard, long years ago, her call, but blew it back.¹