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| | Guardian | R S Thomas |
 | | So Thomas Hardy, in old age, sent up a smokescreen against future biographers by guardedly writing an autobiography, which he then got his wife to publish after his death under her own name. |
 | | To adapt what someone said of de Gaulle, Thomas had one illusion, Wales, and one hate, the Welsh, who had been born into a tradition they neglected, and which he, like a tramp at Christmas, was doomed to stand outside. |
 | | Thomas was 42 when Rupert Hart-Davis brought out Song At The Year's Turning, before which there had been just one book, printed at his own expense, and a few poems in magazines. |
| www.guardian.co.uk /print/0,3858,4068588-103684,00.html (1681 words) |
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