Dylan Thomas, the Sydney suburbs and me

LOVERS of a good story, I have something for you. This one deserves a long subtitle:'Obscure book lies in wait for ideal owner, crosses the planet and gets new life'.This week a story broke in the UK media, concerning the chance discovery in Sydney of an obscure work by Dylan Thomas. This volume then, thanks to serendipitous connections, made it into the hands of the Head of BBC Audio Drama and is soon to premiere as a RADIO PLAY.Why is this important? Because, as Richard Glover put it on his Drive program on ABC Radio 702, the MARVELLOUS original 1954 BBC production of Thomas' Under Milk Wood, read by Richard Burton, is regarded by some as the best radio play ever. Hence the great excitement, then, about a new radio play by the same author, produced by the same venerable institution.How do I know all about this? Because I FOUND THE BOOK! My part in this, although small, was enough to land me a chat with Richard Glover on his show yesterday.So: the facts. I found a copy of Dylan Thomas' The Beach of Falesa when we moved into our house in 2008. It was dusty and underwhelming. The cover was dark and unappealing. Kinda sixties. The title was unfamiliar. Nevertheless, I knew it would interest some folks I know. I placed it on my already-groaning bookshelves and promptly forgot about it. Years later, my step-mother, who is Head of BBC Audio Drama, found that book among the many hundreds on my shelves …TURNS OUT it was sort of rare. Turns out it was also really good. You can read about the new radio play, the long road the story made from short work by Robert Louis Stevenson to screenplay to novella to radio play, and about the book's Sydney discovery in the UK Independent, the Telegraph and The Guardian.Cool, huh?