Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

everything she had done for him. Yes, the devotion between these two was intense, intense. “Another factor was an innate desire in the lad to possess material things for himself. I remember that he was always very interested in automobiles. Once during class I noticed that he was paying absolutely no attention to what I was lecturing on. I walked — I should say, I tiptoed — over to his desk to see what he was reading while I was talking. It was one of those magazines about cars. He was turned to a page describing a Rolls-Royce. I said to him, ‘Rich — do you intent buying one of those someday?’ “And he looked up at me without a blink and he said: ‘Why yes, Sir — I do.’ “A third factor was his vitality — a very vital young character young Richard was, ardent in everything he applied himself to. It became more and more apparent that in the end this application would be involved with something larger than ordinary life, so to speak. “And a final factor was his personality — a strangely loveable personality — which made him much loved by two magnificent men who were to take a vast interest in him in his early teen years and who were to be vastly instrumental in the shaping of his life, and his subsequent career. “Both were teachers here at Dyffryn. One was the late Meredith Jones. The other — P.H. Burton . . . the great P.H. Burton. . . .” “Meredith Jones,” Richard Burton wrote to some friends in Wales recently, reminiscing about the old days, “was shortish and tended to obesity. Quick-thinking and quick-talking to the point of brilliance, he was a great teacher and master of many arguments. He was all electricity, sparkling and flashing; his pyrotechnical arguments would occasionally short-circuit but they were never out of power. Putting his rare personality down on paper, as Lloyd George once said of someone (or vice-versa), is like trying to pick up quicksilver with a fork. “Dear Meredith Jones — dead now for some years, I lament him still — with his breath-taking effrontery and his eloquent and dazzling generalizations, hurled and swept me into the ambition to be something other than a thirty-bob-a-week outfitter’s apprentice.” What had happened years earlier between Meredith Jones and Richard Jenkins was this: Richard, at fifteen, decided one day to quit school. When his sister asked why, he said simply, lying, “Because it is bored with it I am.” And so he quit. And so he took a job as clerk in the men’s clothing department of the National Cooperative Stores, a large British chain. The truth will out And it happened one day that a former teacher of Richard’s — Meredith Jones — dropped by Sis James’ house for a cup of tea and a chat. “Don’t you consider this shocking. Mrs. James,” asked Jones, immediately and to the point, “that a boy with Richard’s promise has left school?” “I do,” said Sis. “It does seem shocking.” “Do you know why he left?” asked Jones. “Because he was tired with it.” said Sis. “At least, so Rich said he was.” “Do you think this is true?” Jones asked. Sis shook her head. “No,” she said. “What do you think?” Jones asked. Sis paused for a moment. Then she said, “That he pitied our circumstances in these troubled times and wants to help me and Elfed as much as he can. I didn’t realize this at first. But I see it on Fridays now. Rich’s pay day, when he comes home and gives me the money he’s earned. It is the only time I see Rich smile these days.” “You think he’s unhappy, then?” Jones asked. Sis nodded. “I think so,” she said. “Do you think, Mrs. James, that you can talk him into giving up his job and returning to school?” “But won’t that be impossible, Mr. Jones? / think it will be. Secretly I have already inquired about this, and I have been told that it will he impossible indeed.” Meredith Jones smiled a little. “I am, in all modesty, a man of some importance in the school system, Mrs. James,” he said. “And I’ll tell you this. If you talk to Richard, and if he indicates that he is at all interested in returning, I shall try jolly well hard to get him back in. And I will. I swear with my blood that I will.” That night, Sis had a talk with Richard. Yes, the boy admitted, after a long hard pull: he had taken the job only to help out; he was unhappy; he did want to go back to school. The next morning. Sis James went for a chat with Meredith Jones. For the next three long weeks, Jones pulled every string he could with the rather severe Glamorgan District Educational Committee to have Richard Jenkins re-admitted to Dyffryn Grammar. And then one afternoon, three weeks later, Richard walked into the little house on Constant Hill. Sis, upstairs cleaning at the time, could hear the downstairs door open and shut, then Richard shout up to her. “Sis — I have wonderful news.” She took a deep breath. She walked to the top of the staircase. “Going back to school, Rich?” she asked. “Yes,” he said. And they rushed towards one another — big sister and little brother. And they hugged, right there in the middle of that staircase. And. suddenly, they began to weep. But not with sorrow — with joy. “Well you’re no JACK KENNEDY! So we’re even!” And so was Meredith Jones — “I lament him still” — important to young Richard’s life and the years ahead of him. The other teacher, P.H. Burton, came into Richard’s life about a year later — in 1942, in fact, when Richard was sixteen. To understand better the relationship between the two, it’s important to know a little bit about P.H. first. Says one man in Port Talbot who knew him well, “P.H. Burton was one of the great teachers — pedantic, didactic, precise. He was always desperately keen on theater. In fact, his life’s ambition was to become an actor himself. But he had a failing. He was a big man, some six feet tall, weighed a good fifteen stones. But for all his bulk he had a sweet small voice, very much out of keeping with his frame. And so he became a developer of actors, rather than an actor himself. . . . His first protege was Owen Jones. P.H. discovered him here, trained him here, gave him all the instruction he could. The time came when young Jones was on the threshold of stardom. But then the war came, too. And Jones became a flier, I believe it was. And he was killed in 1942. . . . That’s when P.H., as he sought another student, another star to replace Jones, cottoned onto Richard Jenkins. Rich was sixteen then. He’d returned to school after a short absence and was doing very well in his studies. I doubt that the idea of theater or theatricals had ever really entered his mind. But one day P.H. announced suddenly to one and all that he saw in young Rich the stuff of which great actors are made. And I don’t doubt that of one and all. the greatest surprise in this matter came to young Rich himself.” Richard’s first performance P.H. began by giving Richard the leads in two Taibach Youth Centre productions — “The Playgoers” and “The Bishop’s Candlesticks.” (This was October, 1942). Satisfied with the hoy’s performances — though not overly — P.H. then began to concentrate on a program of refinement. One afternoon after classes he had a talk with Richard. “Would you like to become an actor — truly — some day?” he asked. Richard shrugged. “I hear they make fine money. Why not?” “The good ones,” said P.H.. “make the good money.” “Then I shall be good.” said Richard. “Fine,” P.H. said. “But the first thing we have to do is to get rid of all the Welsh in your talk. That won’t do at all, you know. You must learn to speak like an Englishman.” “Ell be damned if I'll do that,” said Richard. “I’ll be damned if you don’t,” said P.H. “What is it with you, young man ? Do you want to play peasants for the rest of your life? Or do you want to play princes? And kings?” Without waiting for an answer, P.H. went on: “Next . . . we’ve got to get you to read better stuff than you’ve been reading. You have a basic intellectual capacity. But we've got to work on it. What’s that you’re carrying under your arm right now?” “An American crime book. Very good.” “Bah,” said P.H. “It is Shakespeare you've got to start reading now.” “That bloke?” asked Richard, in doubt. P 57