The Writers of Wales Database

DALE–JONES, DONALD FRANCIS (DON)

Critic, editor and biographer. Born at Ruthin in 1935. In 1939 the absence of his father on active service divided the family and he lived until 1946 largely with his maternal grandparents under the shadow of Moel Famau. In 1946 his father, demobbed from the army, reunited the family at Kettering, Northamptonshire. He read English at Queens` College, Cambridge (1954–7) and taught for a year at the Sewanee Military Academy, Tennessee, before returning to take the P.G.C.E. at Nottingham, marry and teach for three years at High Pavement Grammar School. In 1962 he moved to North Wales, teaching at Rhyl Grammar School and working for the Labour Party in local and parliamentary elections. In 1965 he joined Wyn Binding`s English Department at Trinity College, Carmarthen, where he developed an interest in Anglo–Welsh literature, editing, with Randal Jenkins, two anthologies, Twelve Modern Anglo-Welsh Poets (1975) and Wales Today (1976). 

He served on the Literature Committee of the Welsh Arts Council, wrote reviews and undertook editorial work for Gwasg Gomer. He continued to work for the Labour Party and in 1979, to was appointed NATFHE Regional Official for Wales. Ill-health obliged him to retire early, but enabled him to serve again on Arts Council committees, to become a member of the Rhys Davies Trust, and to concentrate on critical and editorial work, in particular the poetry of the neglected major Anglo-Welsh poet, T.H.Jones (1921-65). His most important critical achievement, shared with his friend P.Bernard Jones, is T.H.Jones, Poet of Exile (2001). The same authors are now editing The Complete Poems of T.H.Jones, which will more than double the number of his poems in print.

Selected Publications:
Emlyn Williams (University of Wales Press, 1979)
A.G.Prys-Jones (Writers of Wales Series) (University of Wales Press, 1992)
Raymond Garlick (Writers of Wales Series) (University of Wales Press, 1996) 

Contributed to:
Twelve Modern Anglo-Welsh Poets (co-editor with W. Randall Jenkins) (Hodder & Stoughton, 1974)
Wales Today (co-editor with W. Randall Jenkins) (J. D. Lewis, 1976)
The Collected Poems of T. Harri Jones (co-writer with Julian Croft) (Beekman, 1987)   
T.H.Jones, Poet of Exile (co-writer) (University of Wales Press, 2001) 
The Complete Poems of T.H. Jones, 1921-1965 (co-editor) (University of Wales Press, 2008)