New Richard Burton Trail
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You’ve read The Richard Burton Diaries, now come to the South Wales Valleys where the story of Hollywood’s one-time highest paid actor began. The newly extended ‘Richard Burton Trail’ around the Afan Forest Park and Port Talbot – including never-before-read pieces of his unpublished poetry – takes you from his birthplace to the haunts of his teenage years and reveals the influences that shaped the man.
You may be unfamiliar with Pontrhydyfen (pronounced Pont-reader-ven), where Burton was born Richard Jenkins, the 12th child of a miner, on 10th November 1925. But it’s an easy hop off the M4 (J40) to find it in the beautiful, forested, steep-sided Afan Valley. The first stage of the Burton Trail was launched here in 2011 and, following its success, a new leg has been added, which opened last Friday, 9th November.
The Trail is the brainchild of locals keen to celebrate their famous son, and Richard’s younger brother Graham Jenkins, who still lives in the area, has been personally involved.
The first stage is a 3-mile walk around Pontrhydyfen from Richard’s modest birthplace beside the River Afan: Over the imposing 19th-century aqueduct and viaduct that served the local ironworks and colliery, to the chapel where the glitterati joined residents for his memorial service following his death (in Switzerland) in 1984.
You can pull out fascinating facts about his life from waymarkers en route – he weighed a whopping 12lbs at birth, loved playing rugby and claimed, “The Welsh are all actors. It’s only the bad ones who become professional.” He did okay, winning seven Oscar nominations from 1952 to 1977.
Also catch his distinctive tones via an interactive sound box as he recites from Under Milk Wood, the celebrated play by his pal, hero and favourite poet, Dylan Thomas. And of course have your picture taken at the Portrait Bench, beside life-sized steel figures of Richard and other local celebs (take a bow, Rob Brydon), with the beautiful Afan Forest as backdrop.
Richard’s “mam” died when he was just two years old and he went to live in nearby Taibach in Port Talbot, with his sister Cis, where he “shone in the reflection of her green-eyed, black-haired, gypsy.” It’s here that the new leg of the Richard Burton Trail takes you on a 30–40 minute stomp through the Welsh legend’s rocky childhood and teenage years.
There’s his Caradog Street home where Rich entertained family and friends in the front room; school, chapel, the rugby club, the library where he buried himself in poetry; and the former Co-op where, of all things, he worked as a gentleman’s outfitter (he would later boast that he still took pride in folding his suits professionally). There’s also Connaught Street where he lodged in the same house as Philip Burton, the teacher who mentored his theatrical talents, became his guardian and whose surname Richard adopted.
A highlight of the trail will be a new garden, designed by local schoolchildren and dedicated to Richard’s memory, in Talbot Memorial Park. Despite all his stage and screen success, Richard claimed really to love reading and writing the most. The garden features (with permission from his widow, Sally Burton) inscriptions from an unpublished poem he wrote about his life in The Valleys: Find out in his own words, what were the “things that made me; grew around the core of my young soul”.
As to the secret of his acting voice with its “gem-cutting precision”: Take a stride up Mynydd Brombil (Margam Mountain), where Philip Burton put him through drills reciting Henry V; learning to project not shout, an unusual exercise that created one of the most distinctive voices of all time (the views across woods and hills are pretty special too).
After all that fresh air, where better for a meal and a kip than mountain-top Afan Lodge, Duffryn Rhondda. Before it was a 4-star guest house, this was The Miners’ Institute, the first place where Richard performed with his brother Graham Jenkins. The unique Richard Burton guest room now occupies the stage area and a collection of memorabilia provides.