Polly Garter's War — Tom Davies

Polly Garter's War is set in New Quay, West Wales, during the Second World War, when a trickle of odd characters, including Dylan and Caitlin Thomas, are escaping to get out of War's way.

Dolly James, a woman with a pneumatic figure and a shady past, turns up there one morning, immediately becoming a big hit in the gossip of the boys in the bar.

She is a good girl until she sniffs alcohol, when she's anyone's. Soon she has bestowed her wondrous sexual favours on a series of men including Dylan himself, a Welsh nationalist, and a German U-boat captain in the back row of the local cinema. After a few encounters with Dolly the captain turns from a stiff Teutonic type into a raving mad Welshman.

Dolly's oddest quirk is that she shouts out verses from the Bible in Welsh while making love. But she doesn't even understand Welsh. Was she the prototype for Dylan Thomas's equally sensuous Polly Garter?

Lusty and drop dead funny, Polly Garter's War is a fast-paced romp around Wales at war and little will prepare you for an ending which explodes into a visionary rainbow.