the PLAYWRITE in the GARDENS

When the Welsh playwright Emiyn Williams visited Gibraltar in 1931 he was only 26 but was already the darling of London's West End. His plays The Corn is Green and A Murder Has Been Arranged were current major hits. Meanwhile The Late Christopher Bean was doing well and Spring 1600 had opened to rave reviews.

Emlyn was in demand every where, the pressure was proving too much, the English January weather was as bad as ever and so he decided to get away.

Without telling any of his friends or business associates Emlyn gath ered up his luggage and a compan ion named Fess and boarded a P&O liner bound for Australia via the Mediterranean. After a rough cross ing of the Bay of Biscay, which Williams described as "Two days and nights that were fiendish.Sev eral times I fell into a permanent faint", the ship passed bv Gibraltar and into the calmer waters of the Med and a more relaxed Williams wrote:"...the galleys,the mermaids; thatevening from the moonlit deck 1 heard music and low voices, this was more like it."

Williams and Fess disembarked at Naples and spent some time re laxing days under the Italian sun before purchasing a car and tour ing through France and into Spain. "As the straight roads became Spanish ones my mind tired of its vacancy," wrote Williams and so the pair headed for Gibraltar.

Fess had been to Gibraltar before and as they approached the Rock he turned to Williams and with a sly grin said,"1 was in the Navy for five minutes, ever heard o' the Alameda Gardens?" Williams had. He described the Alameda Gardens as "...expanses of flower beds and avenues under shady trees, the godsend of British nannies and strolling officials and wives."

But those were the gardens in the day-time. In the evening Williams and Fess left the Rock Hotel and headed downtown.

"In the jostling main street we entered a caf^ which could have been in Portsmouth on a rowdy Sat urday. Teams of homesick sailors were getting drunk.Fess wandered away alone."

At about 11 that night Williams headed for the Alameda (in those days the gardens were not locked at dusk). As he wandered along Williams felt both nervous and ex hilarated. Within the trees he saw gliding movements. On a bench, a solitary sailor.

"Evenin' sonor, buenas noches, got a light for a cigarette?' mention the sailor again. Ho docs discuss the eventful trip back to the hotel. ing nightcaps in the lounge 1 felt unique in my fashion.

"Sorry, 1 don't smoke," Williams replied as he sat down beside the sailor.

"Never mind, 1 got a match. 1 was just doin' me stoof."

Noting the ac cent Williams in quired, "Liver pool."

" N ew Brighton."

"To be hounded out of the town gardens by every male prostitute known to the town's police is one way to highlight a holiday in a great outpost of the Empire."

The next day Williams read in the Telegraph that the Late Christopher Beati was still going strong after 350 performances,but that Spring 1600 was about to close.

It transpired that Williams and the sailor had a mutual acquaintance in New Brighton, a policeman named Joe Hesketh. He was a friend of Williams' aunt and he had ar rested and then released the sailor after catching him stealing apples from a barrow.

Williams had put the hissing out of his mind when suddenly from the sinister darkness of the huge trees flanking him Williams could hear the "...chat tering of twenty castrated Rock monkeys,shrill ing gibberings of rage."

Suddenly stones came hurtling in from all directions.

He had been gone two weeks and decided it was time to get back to London.The car was sent home by ship and Williams and Fess hopped on a train "...and stayed on a train for two days. Never was a train journey so tedious. I was glad for Fess's imperturbable silences. The wittiest talk would have been un bearable."

Tibet- f

— Emlyn Williams on the 1963 romance of Richard Burton 6 Elizabeth Taylor while filming Cleopatra in Egypt

Williams found the coincidence amusing."In the middle of Gibral tar it was funny."

He didn't find it funny,however, when the bushes rustled behind

Ti'ianu-

"In the moonlight 1 was a target. They were not big, and all the more lethal for it; sharp as Toledo steel. The first landed a yard behind me,sparking smartly off the gravel. Then 1 hoard a shrill giggle as another whistled past my ear.

"1 thought, if I am to die sud denly this is not the way to do it. St. Stephen may have been canon ised for having been stoned to him and he heard a long hiss and then tittering.

As he wandered along Williams felt both nervous and exhilarated. Within the trees he saw gliding movements.

"Don't mind them," said the sailor. "They're the local Spanish queens an'they'card you talk Eng lish, they reckon the Gardens is their beat you see."

Williams didn't argue when the sailor suggested "a turn around the deck an' they'll calm down."

In his first autobiography, which relates the early years of his life and career,Williams makes no mention of what transpired on the 'turn around the deck'and in fact doesn't death but his conscience was cleaner than mine."

Williams was determined not to lose face, however, and rather than run he walked at a measured pace. "1 knew that each burst of falsetto invective would be followed by a missile which might find its mark. The last hundred yards, along a path leading to a great gate and the maps of the main road were very long ones."

"Entering the Rock Hotel, 1 de cided not to tell Fess or anybody. Passing the British citizens drink

Williams went on to achieve even greater fame as a playwright and actor and died on L5th September, 1987 just two months and a day short of his 82nd birthday. He wrote more than two dozen plays, several novels, two autobiogra phies and appeared in more than 100 films and plays.

Etnli/n Williams was famous for u<orkssuchas 'Night Must Fall'and 'The Corn Is Green', which was twice made into a Hollyioood film