From the archive, 1 February 1971: Welsh village set for 'Under Milk Wood'

Organ Morgan, Evans the Death, Captain Cat, and the Rev. Eli Jenkins will as surely hear "the Sea Break and the Gab of birds" in Lower Fishguard Harbour as they did in their imaginary seaport village of Llaregyb in "Under Milk Wood." This week Timon Films will start shooting the film of "Under Milk Wood" in this tiny North Pembrokeshire hamlet with its colour-washed cottages, screeching gulls and red, green and blue boats bobbing in the harbour. The film, with Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter O'Toole, is being made on £1/4 million from the National Film Federation. The stars have agreed to work for a percentage of the profits. Burton, who arrives on Wednesday, is the narrator while Peter O'Toole who plays Captain Cat, is coming in March. Elizabeth Taylor, as the promiscuous Rosie Probert, will do all her filming in London.

With 200 people on the dole in Fishguard, hopes are high that once again a film will provide work. Many villagers remember parts of "Moby Dick" being shot in Fishguard Bay 15 years ago when the film-makers stayed seven months. Perhaps this optimism accounts for the apparent indifference with which villagers watched a bulldozer demolishing a wall round one of the cottages. "They said they will build it again when they have finished filming," said the owner, Mrs Minnie Collins. The cottage will be Captain Cat's house in the film.

"People are pretty broad minded round here," said Brian Brooks, a young merchant seaman. Like most people in Lower Fishguard, he has never heard of or read "Under Milk Wood," but said everyone was pleased it had been chosen for the film. His mother's house with its ornamental garden, will be Mrs Ogmore Pritchard's house in the film. Apart from work for some colleagues as extras, the hiring of cows, goats and donkeys - as well as providing a load of dung - will no doubt bring some rewards for local farmers. Tourist officials, too, have an eye for profit. They plan to make Lower Fishguard a tourist attraction as soon as the film is released.

Already holiday literature, advertising North Pembrokeshire, is on its way to the US in the hope that Americans will be drawn here by Dylan Thomas's name. However, 40 miles away at Laugharne, where Dylan Thomas wrote "Under Milk Wood," the town is still smarting because the film is not being made there. The Portreeve of Laugharne, Mr O. J. Williams, has roundly condemned the choice of Lower Fishguard. "To film 'Under Milk Wood' anywhere rather than Laugharne would be as absurd as filming James Joyce's 'The Dubliners' in Birmingham," he said.

These archive extracts, compiled by the Guardian's research and information department, appear online daily at gu.com/fromthearchive