A Child's Christmas in Wales

A Child's Christmas in Wales is a prose work by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Originally emerging from a piece he wrote for radio, recorded by Thomas in 1952, the story is an anecdotal retelling of a Christmas from the view of a young child and a romanticised version of Christmases past, portraying a nostalgic and simpler time. It is one of Thomas's most popular works.

Thomas had recorded work for BBC Radio beginning in 1937, when he first read poetry on the air and talked about his life as a poet. Although his radio work provided only a minor source of income, in the early 1940s he began writing radio scripts, and in late 1942 he wrote Reminiscences of Childhood, a 15-minute talk that was broadcast by the Welsh BBC in February of the following year. This was followed by Quite Early one Morning in 1944, recorded in Wales and produced by Aneirin Talfan Davies. Although popular in Wales, when Davies offered the Quite Early one Morning recording to the BBC in London for national broadcast it was rejected, as producers at the BBC were unimpressed by what was described as Dylan's "breathless poetic voice".

In 1945, producer Lorraine Davies of the Welsh Children's Hour wrote to Thomas suggesting a talk entitled "Memories of Christmas". Thomas thought that this was "a perfectly good title to hang something on", and by the autumn he had finished work on a reading for the show. It was accepted by BBC London, but the Children's Hour director, Derek McCulloch (Uncle Mac), was unhappy about allowing the "notoriously tricky" Thomas to read the piece live, which was the normal practice of the show. McCulloch wrote to Thomas pretending there were technical reasons that prevented recording it live on that day, and Thomas recorded the work in advance.

Almost five years later, Thomas enlarged his 1945 BBC talk "Memories of Christmas", merging in sections of an essay written for Picture Post in 1947 titled "Conversation about Christmas". In 1950, he sold the work (published under the title "A Child's Memories of a Christmas in Wales") to the American magazine Harper's Bazaar for $300.

On his 1952 tour of America, Thomas was visited at the Chelsea Hotel by college graduates Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Mantell, who believed that there were commercial possibilities in the United States for recordings of poetry. After previously finding little interest from American backers in medieval music and Shakespeare recitals, the women had turned to the recording of contemporary authors reading their own works. For his 45-minute recording, Thomas agreed to a fee of $500 for the first 1,000 records made, and a ten-percent royalty thereafter. After no interested publishing company could be found, Holdridge and Mantell themselves were forced to pay Thomas the initial fee, and a contract was drawn up between Thomas and the women's company, Caedmon Audio, for that purpose.

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