Wow Here she is lusted after by Sinbad, his beard like a tuft of wiry fire, his heart broken.

Ah, being a teacher, she’s too good for him, is that it?

That’s certainly what Sinbad thinks. “O beautiful beautiful Gossamer B, I wish I wish that you were for me, I wish that you were not so educated.”

Or over-worked Not in Llaregyb. Dylan Thomas chose the town name because it reads backwards as “Bugger all” - which is, in fact, what his characters do all day. If the truth be known Gorgeous Gossamer is neither too hard-working nor too proud. “I don’t care if he’s common,” she says. “I want to gobble him up. I don’t care if he does drop his aitches, as long as he’s all cucumber and hooves.”

And does she gobble him up?

No, the couple just lust from afar. No one is happily married under Milk Wood, women either yearn from a distance or loathe in marital proximity. Take Mrs Pugh.

Who she?

Wife of Gossamer’s headteacher, Mr P, he who lives in the School House and reads Lives of The Great Poisoners at dinner, all the time imagining he’s put arsenic in Mrs Pugh’s tea or weedkiller in her biscuit. “I’ve throttled your parakeet, I’ve spat in the vases, I’ve put cheese in the mouseholes, dear.”

What’s his problem then?

Mrs Pugh. “Some persons were brought up in pigsties,” she tells her husband pointedly. According to Dylan Thomas, Mrs P even nags the salt-cellar.

Not an ideal person to come home to at the end of a hard day raising literacy and numeracy standards.

Mr Pugh’s mind runs on ground glass, rat soup and a special porridge that will cause his wife’s ears to fall off, her toes to grow black and steam to come out of her navel. “What’s that book by your trough, Mr Pugh?” she asks as an icicle forms in the chilly room.

Give me Gossamer any day!

That’s what Sinbad says. If she’s not available, go for Polly Garter. That’s what everyone else does.

Is this book on the national curriculum?

Adrian Mourby