Gwyn Thomas was born into a large and boisterous family in Cymmer, Porth in 1913. After a scholarship to Porth County School he went to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he read Spanish. Mass unemployment at home and in-ground poverty deepened his radicalism. After working for the WEA he became a teacher, first in Cardigan and from 1942 in Barry. In 1962 he left teaching and concentrated on writing and broadcasting.