The Kardomah Gang,The Kardomah Boys, or Kardomah Group was a group of bohemian friends – artists, musicians, poets and writers – who, in the 1930s, frequented the Kardomah Café in Castle Street, Swansea, Wales.

Members of the Gang

Regular members of the Gang included poets Charles Fisher, Dylan Thomas, Bert Trick, John Prichard and

Vernon Watkins Vernon Phillips Watkins (27 June 1906 – 8 October 1967) was a Welsh poet and translator. His headmaster at Repton was Geoffrey Fisher, who became Archbishop of Canterbury. Despite his parents being Nonconformists, Watkins' school experienc ...

, composer and linguist Daniel Jones, artists Alfred Janes and Mervyn Levy, Mabley Owen and Tom Warner.

The Kardomah Café

The café was located opposite the offices of the

South Wales Evening Post The ''South Wales Evening Post'' is a tabloid daily newspaper distributed in the South West region of Wales. The paper has three daily editions – Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire – and is published by Media Wales, part ...

newspaper where Thomas and Fisher worked. This was where the group drank coffee and discussed many subjects including Einstein,

Epstein The surname Epstein ( yi, עפּשטײן, Epshteyn) is one of the oldest Ashkenazi Jewish family names. It is probably derived from the German town of Eppstein, in Hesse; the place-name was probably derived from Gaulish ''apa'' ("water", in the sen ...

, Garbo, Stravinsky, death, religion and Picasso. Kardomah Cafe, Swansea

In a letter, dated 26 May 1934 to

Pamela Hansford Johnson Pamela Hansford Johnson, Baroness Snow, (29 May 1912 – 18 June 1981) was an English novelist, playwright, poet, literary and social critic. Life Hansford Johnson was born in London. Her mother, Amy Clotilda Howson, was a singer and actress, ...

, Dylan Thomas writes about their first meeting in the Kardomah Café:

I'm in a dreadful mess now. I can hardly hold the pencil or hold the paper. This has been coming for weeks. And the last four days have completed it. I'm absolutely at the point of breaking now. You remember how I was when I said goodbye to you for the first time. In the Kardomah when I loved you so much and was too shy to tell you.Fitzgibbon, C., 'Selected Letters of Dylan Thomas, p132, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1966,

The Blitz

In February 1941, Swansea was heavily bombed by the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

, in a 'Three Nights Blitz'. Castle Street was just one of the many streets in Swansea that suffered badly; the rows of shops, including the 'Kardomah Café', were destroyed. After the bombing, Dylan Thomas came back to visit Swansea. He later wrote about the devastation in his radio play entitled ''Return Journey to Swansea''. In the play, he describes the café as being "Razed to the snow".

Relocation of Kardomah Café

The Kardomah Café reopened after the war in a new location in Portland Street, a short walk from where the original stood. The café's Castle Street site was originally the site of the Congregational church where Dylan Thomas's parents married in 1903. Recollections of the cafe and people who met there were recorded by Fisher and are available at kardomahgroup.ne

*"My recollections of the place date from the year I started working for the Post (1934?) Dylan, briefly a reporter at the same time as myself, was in the process of leaving the paper and preparing his assault on literary London. (But he and I were in the habit of meeting there even before then, in Grammar School days (see:

Bishop Gore School The Bishop Gore School ( cy, Ysgol Esgob Gore) is a secondary school in Swansea in Wales, founded on 14 September 1682 by Hugh Gore (1613–1691), Bishop of Waterford and Lismore. It is situated in Sketty, close to Singleton Park and Swans ...

) when editing the school magazine was used as a pretext for cutting classes)" etc...

References

External links

*Piece that appeared in the Independent about the Kardomah occasioned by the death of the last surviving member, Charles Fisher, in 2006

* BBC Wales documentary on ''The Kardomah Boys'', broadcast in 199

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kardomah Gang, The Arts in Wales Organisations based in Swansea People from Swansea Mass media and culture in Swansea