Library - resources

T.H.Jones Library Thursday 9th July 2009

Builth Wells High School honoured the late poet T.H.Jones by naming the school library after him.

T. H. Jones’s sister Pat Power officially named the new library within Builth Wells High School after the poet on Thursday evening and unveiled a plaque in his memory.

Shan Davies Headteacher said ‘ It is a privilege for us to have the T.H.Jones library in the school as a place for all our pupils to read for both pleasure and study.’

Librarian Esther Sargeant said ‘the new library has transformed the reading experiences of school pupils.’

T. H. Jones alongside Dylan Thomas and R. S. Thomas is regarded as third great Welsh poet of the 20th Century.
T. H. Jones was born in Llanafan in 1921 and was educated at Builth Wells High School in what was the first golden age for the school in the 1930’s. During the Second World War he had formative active service in the navy in the Mediterranean.

He worked and published three volumes of poetry in London and Portsmouth and then emigrated to Australia with his family, to work as a Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, a post which he held until the end of his life in 1965.

The T. H. Jones Trust presented sixth form student Harriet Walker with a copy of the recently published ‘Complete Poems of T.H.Jones’ edited by Dr.Bernard Jones, Head of English at the school.

Many family members from all over the country joined school governors, staff and pupils to celebrate the poet's life.

Friends of the school in attendance included Lord and Lady Hooson, Chairman of Powys County Council David Price, County Councillor Avril York, Mayor of Builth Wells John Carruthers and Chair of Governors Kurt Steyer.

Books were presented by Celia Jeffries and Carole Walsh of Builth Wells Community Arts and Pat Power presented on behalf of Builth Wells Heritage Society’s two copies of their book of photographs of historic Builth Wells as the first to be donated to the new ‘T. H. Jones Library.’