We simply don't have the funds to increase staff to the point that we

"We simply don't have the funds to increase staff to the point that we could open more and protect the collection. "Our cultural heritage provides the background and basis for hundreds of businesses and thousands of livelihoods in this little corner of England. I believe Castle House has enormous potential and a regular year-round opening policy could boost the local economy of the area Munnings loved so much."Dell Bower, who runs a tea shop in Dedham, said: "Castle House is very special in the way that his art is shown and we desperately need something to stimulate tourism in this village."But the chairman of the Castle House Trust for the past 10 years, David Short, defended the amount of the time the public is allowed access to the house and studio. We have a very dubious fragile building that would fall apart if we opened it more and we prefer to keep visitors at a level where we can cope with the wear and tear as it arises, rather than running it into the ground. Gerald Milsom, a local restaurateur and former chairman of the East Anglia Tourist Board, said that opening only between May and September was not enough."I believe this is a national and international issue affecting the well-being of Dedham," he said.

His masterpiece Lord And Lady Mildmay Of Flete With Their Children recently fetched a record £2.7m at a sale of 10 of his works at Christie's in New York.Traders in Dedham want Castle House, where the collection is kept, to open more often, a move feel would encourage tourism in the town. But his work is becoming increasingly popular and residents in the nearby town of Dedham, near Colchester, Essex, have accused the trust of failing to make the paintings available to art-lovers and tourists.Works by Munnings now fetch good prices at auction and there is a growing demand for his sporting scenes, many of which were created in rural East Anglia. The trustees of a valuable series of paintings by Sir Alfred Munnings have defended their decision to open to the public on only 40 days a year. The trustees of a valuable series of paintings by Sir Alfred Munnings have defended their decision to open to the public on only 40 days a year. The collection, which comprises over 200 paintings, is kept in the magnificent pink Georgian house where Munnings painted until his death 40 years ago and which has been left as it was when he died at the age of 80. But it's important to realise that Llareggub is a composite of all the places Dylan ever lived combined with his own vibrant imagination.".

David Thomas's book is a good one; but he seems driven to improve the economy of Cardiganshire and although there's a level of literary and cultural tourism in Dylan, it's not a licence to print money."Cultural tourism is a growing market, and I would be happy to send people to New Quay. The author added: "There is also a good deal of architectural and topographical detail in Under Milk Wood that corresponds with New Quay but not with Laugharne, such as Dylan's reference to Llareggub as a hill of windows."Laugharne sits in an estuarial valley while New Quay rises on a steep hill from the seafront. And Mr Thomas links characters in the play with locals at New Quay. He says that the hard-drinking Cherry Owen was based on Walter Cherry, a regular at Dylan Thomas's favourite pub, the Black Lion; the donkeyman Tom-Fred came from Dylan's New Quay friend Dai Fred; and Lord Cut-Glass was based on Alistair Graham, a friend who lived near New Quay, on whom Evelyn Waugh based Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited.Jeff Towns, an expert on the life of Dylan Thomas, who runs the Dylan Thomas bookstore in the poet's home city of Swansea, thinks David Thomas may have overstated his claim.Mr Towns said: "New Quay was an important factor [in Under Milk Wood ] but there were many others and Thomas lets himself down by being so vehement and blinkered.

Dylan Thomas himself said it for 15 years."But, says Mr Thomas, the poet first visited New Quay in the 1930s and stayed in a mansion on the outskirts of the village between 1938 and 1943, and at a clifftop bungalow near by from 1944 to 1945.He added: "Dylan's time in New Quay was his first prolonged immersion in the ordinary, everyday lives of the tradespeople of a small Welsh town, and it formed the bedrock from which the petite bourgeoisie of Llareggub was developed."Mr Thomas also claims that Under Milk Wood's Sailor's Arms is New Quay's Sailor's Home Arms and Llareggub's Downs are New Quay Downs. There is a published letter from Dylan Thomas to the literary figure and magazine owner Princess Marguerite Caetani in which he says he is working on the play [ Under Milk Wood ] and that he has based it on Laugharne There is no doubt about it. Instead, the book claims, the work is based on New Quay, a fishing village in Cardiganshire.Laugharne has many associations with Dylan Thomas, who certainly lived and wrote there for a period. Indeed, both he and his wife, Caitlin, are buried in St Martin's Church there. Associations with Under Milk Wood have been so strong that the Cross Inn, where Dylan Thomas's father drank, has been renamed the Under Milk Wood Inn.In an article published in this week's edition of the New Welsh Review, David N Thomas said: "New Quay was the real template for Under Milk Wood , and the people of Laugharne were incidental." Associations with Laugharne had been "over-egged", he said, adding that the poet only spent four and a half years there and he had been there for only 18 months when he sent the first half of Under Milk Wood to the BBC in the autumn of 1950.The claims provoked a furious reaction yesterday from the Laugharne author George Tremlett, who wrote one of the best-known books on Dylan Thomas's life He said: "This is hocus pocus. The Welsh village that for 50 years has assumed it was the template for Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood now faces losing some of its tourists and much of its literary chic. A book claims that the poet based his best-known and most evocative work on somewhere else altogether.