NOSTALGIC Christmas imagery from Dylan Thomas’ popular prose A Child’s Christmas in Wales inspired a fan in Hay-on-Wye to create the town’s top festive window display.

Kate Lewis, who has recently started working at the Hay-on-Wye Booksellers, is a big fan of Dylan Thomas and was inspired to create a Christmas window display to share his rich imagery after coming across one of his radio scripts, Memories of Christmas.

It was a precursor to the poet’s famous work, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, and Kate has shared the romantic Christmas images by copying the prose on to bunting strung across one of the shop’s windows.

She was delighted to learn her display had won not only this year’s small Christmas window competition but the overall competition, run annually by Hay’s Chamber of Commerce, too.

Kate, who has never dressed a window before, said: “I have only just started working there. I work two days a week and against my shift one day I saw ‘Kate, window display.’

“I found a beautiful piece that was a beginning point for A Child’s Christmas in Wales, one of Dylan’s radio scripts; Memories of Christmas. I just picked out ideas and images and went with it. I begged, stole and borrowed from everyone I know.

“”The display wasn’t done with the competition in mind. I used to be a teacher and you get carried away with ideas and stories.”

She said bookshop owners, Mike Bullock and Jane Jordan, liked the idea and gave her free reign to create the award-winning display.

The theme runs across three windows and at the centre is a flickering fire with a rocking chair to one side with a mini version of a Child’s Christmas in Wales on it.

The last line of the text captures the magic and enchantment of Christmas for children as remembered by Dylan on a “never to be forgotten day at the end of an unremembered year.”

Kate added: “Thanks Dylan for the imagery. It’s nostalgia. It’s about reaching people and telling stories which is what Dylan did so well.

“I’m a fan of Dylan. He was a genius. What he does is provide imagery. If you have been there and seen it you understand.”

Kate may not have been aware that she was pitching her skills against the town’s talented designers and artists who this year had created head turning window displays making judging hard for Lisa Herbert and Elda Mellen from Presteigne, who judged small and large window categories and awarded prizes on Tuesday this week.

Competition organiser, Malcolm Gooch, of Hay’s Chamber of Commerce, said the judges were “very impressed” with Kate’s display. “She dressed several windows. The judges had been looking for creativity and for people to have made something,” said Malcolm.

Taking second prize in the small window category was the Sandwich Cellar which featured a row of cardboard mountains in a tiny space, followed by the Great English Outdoors in third place.

The large window competition saw Llewellyn and Company scoop first prize with a creation, featuring pixies, baubles, a sleigh and an old shop chest, by shop owner Anna Llewllyn Funnell.

Husband, John Funnell, said: “Anna is very talented at window dressing. We just use what we have. This time there’s a chest of drawers from an old French shop display. The drawers have numbers on and it’s almost like advent.”

In second place was the Red Cross Shop which has a striking Christmas tree created from layers of clothing against a background of paperchain snow, created by Hay’s Emily Daw.

Assistant shop manager, Liz Ward-Willis, said: “Emily always uses bits from our shop. She comes in and rummages around in the basement and gets inspiration from what she sees. She has an arts background and is very talented. There had been a fan that made the paperchains ripple, like snow falling. The presents around the tree are white with a red cross.”

In third place was Booth’s Bookshop where Hay artist, Sarah Putt, had created a wintry white scene using text printed paper, shredded to make snow and wrapped around sparkling trees and covering a large moon.

Malcolm added: “We spent a lot of time wandering the streets in the evening looking at the windows. Sometimes there was only a point in it. The overall standard is very good and people are being very creative.”