David Hughes

David Hughes (born 1947) is a Welsh writer. He is the originator of the phrase "ambition is critical", which was made famous by its appearance in the 1997 film Twin Town and has regularly been misattributed to fellow Swansea poet Dylan Thomas.

Early life David Hughes was born in Bargoed in the Rhymney Valley in 1947. For the first seven years of his life he lived in Breconshire, before his family moved to Mumbles in Swansea. He initially trained as a teacher and worked in London and the English Midlands before moving back to Swansea, where he still lives. In 1975, he switched careers to become a social worker, working in the Mental Health Services Department of the City and County of Swansea.

Career

Hughes has released two full collections of poetry. The first was Tidy Boy, published by Swansea Poetry Workshop in 1998. Three poems from Tidy Boy ('Flowers', Tidy Boy' and 'The Streets of Llandeilo') would later be included in the anthology Poetry 1900–2000, which was published in the Library of Wales series to show the development of Welsh poetry in English during the 20th century. In 2023, Hughes' dialect poetry was performed as part of a special celebration of his work by actors Christian Patterson, Sophie Melville, Lisa Zahra, Richard Mylan and Lee Mengo. The charity event saw the actors read the poems as dramatic monologues, exploring character, memory and Welsh identity.

In addition to the contemporary monologues of his dialect poetry, Hughes has also created historical monologues as part of the Catch the Echoes project. These commissions can be heard via a QR code trail at Margam Country Park and along parts of the River Tawe. In April 2011, political party Plaid Cymru were forced to correct a manifesto that used it as its title, incorrectly stating that it was chosen in honour of the upcoming Dylan Thomas centenary in 2014. Many quickly pointed out the party's mistake, with poet Nigel Jenkins remarking that although it was a splendid slogan to choose for his election manifesto, Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones was simply fuelling the urban myth. However, many of the one-line 'micropoems' that were inscribed on street furniture were soon removed, following a smear campaign in the Swansea Herald and South Wales Evening Post that suggested the poets were making fun of the "local patois." The only poem to survive both the 1993 cull and later city-centre refurbishments was Hughes' "ambition is critical", by then a celebrated phrase in the city due to its appearance in Twin Town. In 2015, the three words were crudely restored by the council, who filled in the damaged metal letters with a bright red resin.