A Child's Christmas in Wales

Emerging from an earlier piece he wrote for BBC Radio, the work is an anecdotal reminiscence of a Christmas from the viewpoint of a young boy, portraying a nostalgic and simpler time.

In 1945, the producer of the Welsh Children's Hour, Lorraine Davies, wrote to Thomas suggesting a talk entitled "Memories of Christmas".

It was accepted by BBC in London, but Derek McCulloch (Uncle Mac), the presenter and producer of Children's Hour, was unhappy about allowing the "notoriously tricky" Thomas to read the piece live, which was the normal practice of the show.

[3][4] On his 1952 tour of America, Thomas was visited at the Chelsea Hotel by college graduates Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Roney, who believed that there were commercial possibilities in the United States for recordings of poetry.

[5] 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.

[6] On 22 February 1952, Thomas recorded five of his poems: "In the white giant's thigh", "Fern Hill", "Do not go gentle into that good night", "Ballad of the Long-legged Bait", and "Ceremony After a Fire Raid".

[13] The prose readily lends itself to being illustrated, and the original 1959 pressing by Caedmon Records' New Directions contained five wood-block engravings by Fritz Eichenberg.