28 Facts About RS Thomas

RS Thomas, was a Welsh poet and Anglican priest noted for nationalism, spirituality and dislike of the anglicisation of Wales.

RS Thomas was one of the major English language and European poets of the 20th century.

RS Thomas was awarded a bursary in 1932 to study at the University College of North Wales, where he read Latin.

RS Thomas subsequently became curate-in charge of Tallarn Green, Flintshire, as part of his duties as curate of Hanmer.

Whilst Sage devotes a great deal of her autobiography Bad Blood to her late relative, she does not mention RS Thomas, who was in any case in Hanmer before Sage was born.

Related searches

RS Thomas never wrote much about his curacies and nothing is known of the relationship between him and Meredith-Morris.

The RS Thomas family lived on a tiny income and lacked the comforts of modern life, largely through their own choice.

From 1942 to 1954 RS Thomas was rector of St Michael's Church, Manafon, near Welshpool in rural Montgomeryshire.

RS Thomas's poetry achieved a breakthrough with the publication in 1955 of his fourth book, Song at the Year's Turning, in effect a collected edition of his first three volumes.

RS Thomas's position was helped by winning the Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Award.

RS Thomas learnt the Welsh language from the age of 30, – too late in life, he said, to be able to write poetry in it.

RS Thomas became a fierce advocate of Welsh nationalism, although he never supported Plaid Cymru, as it recognised the English Parliament and so in his view fell short in its opposition to England.

RS Thomas was nominated for the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature, the winner of which was Wislawa Szymborska.

RS Thomas received the 1996 Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement.

RS Thomas died on 25 September 2000 aged 87, at his home in Pentrefelin near Criccieth, survived by his second wife, Elizabeth Vernon.

RS Thomas had been ill with a heart condition and treated at Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor until two weeks before he died.

RS Thomas's ashes are buried near the door of St John's Church, Porthmadog, Gwynedd.

RS Thomas preached that they were all part of the temptation of scrambling after gadgets rather than attending to more spiritual needs.

In terms of religion, although he sometimes appeared to lack charity and patience, RS Thomas served as a Church in Wales parish priest all his working life.

In one of his autobiographical books, he asserted that in retirement he could no longer bring himself to go to Holy Communion on account of the changes, although one of his successors at Aberdaron indicated that RS Thomas always retained the bishop's permission to officiate and occasionally did so at Llanfaelrhys, when no one else could be found.

RS Thomas has been credited by some as a capable listener and counsellor at a time when such things were not common among the clergy, and to have been a devoted visitor to the sick.

RS Thomas believed in what he called "the true Wales of my imagination", a Welsh-speaking aboriginal community in tune with the natural world.

RS Thomas viewed western materialism and greed, represented in the poetry by his mythical "Machine", as the destroyers of community.

RS Thomas was an ardent supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and described himself as a pacifist, but supported the nationalist Meibion Glyndwr fire bombings of English-owned holiday cottages in rural Wales.

RS Thomas resigned his RSPB membership over their plans to introduce non-native kites to Wales.

Related searches

RS Thomas described this shift as an investigation into the "adult geometry of the mind".

RS Thomas said there is a "lack of love for human beings" in his poetry.

RS Thomas was completely authoritative, a very, very fine poet, completely off on his own, out of the loop but a real individual.