RS Thomas’s poetry “reduces most other modern verse to footling whimsy”, said Kingsley Amis. It is simple in expression, powerful, and sometimes bleak, which is the feeling of his parish of Aberdaron ”“ he was an Anglican priest ”“ on the windswept Llyn peninsula in Wales. It is the last stop on the pilgrims’ route to Bardsey Island, where holy men sleep in their tombs.
I found Aberdaron last week. I had gone in search of Thomas’s places: the medieval church, in earshot of the crashing waves, where he preached to the minority in the village who were not “chapel”; the cliffs and beach; and (which took detective work) Thomas’s vicarage. It looms vast and austere on the hill behind shrubs grown wild, the walls clad in slate that has flaked off in patches, exposing the Welsh stone underneath. Two doctors bought it as a restoration job but have given up, perhaps daunted. The neighbour said I could wander down the grass-covered lane and look.