In 1936, after he completed his theological training at St Michael's College, Llandaff, he was ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church in Wales.

Thomas Meredith-Morris, grandfather of the writer Lorna Sage, a fact later described by Byron Rogers as a "crossing of paths of two of Wales's strangest clergymen".

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

During his time there he began to study Welsh and published his first three volumes of poetry, The Stones of the Field (1946), An Acre of Land (1952) and The Minister (1953).

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.

He and his wife moved to Y Rhiw,[7] into "a tiny, unheated cottage in one of the most beautiful parts of Wales, where, however, the temperature sometimes dipped below freezing," according to Theodore Dalrymple.

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

[11][12] A memorial event celebrating his life and poetry was held at Westminster Abbey with readings from Heaney, Andrew Motion, Gillian Clarke and John Burnside.

Thomas's son, Gwydion, recalls his father's sermons, in which he would "drone on" to absurd lengths about the evil of refrigerators, washing machines, televisions and other modern devices.

"[6] Although he may have taken some ideas to extreme lengths, Theodore Dalrymple wrote, Thomas "was raising a deep and unanswered question: What is life for?

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

His training at St Michael's College, Llandaff, placed him somewhat in the Tractarian Tradition, though he does not seem to have been more than central in his position as regards the conduct of services.

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 Thomas always retained the bishop's permission to officiate and occasionally did so at Llanfaelrhys, when no one else could be found.

In a letter to a theological student in 1993 he denied he held similar views to the non-realist Cambridge theologian and philosopher Don Cupitt.

As a priest, it seems that Thomas did not believe he was there to promote his own views, but those of the church he served, and for all his vaunted crabbiness, he seems to have been well enough regarded by parishioners, though biographies offer notable exceptions.

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

Yes, many a time I came down his bare flight Of stairs into the gaunt kitchen With its wood fire, where crickets sang Accompaniment to the black kettle's Whine, and so into the cold Dark to smother in the thick tide Of night that drifted about the walls Of his stark farm on the hill ridge.

It was the dark Silting the veins of that sick man I left stranded upon the vast And lonely shore of his bleak bed.

Laboratories of the Spirit (1975) gives, in its title, a hint at this development and also reveals Thomas's increasing experiments with scientific metaphor.