Colourful: The murals are displayed in a Swansea underpass

More than 50 schools in and around Swansea have created artworks, photographs, poetry and music as part of the city's two-week festival to mark Thomas' death half a century ago.

Organisers hope the youngsters' work will prove they can still appreciate the writings of Wales' best -known bard even though some of it can be considered too shocking for young minds.

Festival spokesman David Woolley said: "Too often teachers would not even think to use Dylan Thomas' work with young children because there can be difficulties with it because so much of it is about sex and death."

"We want to prove that kids can really get into it if it's approached in the right way."

Six of the largest pieces - by pupils at primary and special schools - have gone up at the Wind Street underpass, leading to the Dylan Thomas Centre.

Youngsters took this picture of the poet's grave

The 8ft by 4ft murals unveiled on Tuesday are each based on a line of Thomas' poetry.

The pupils gave their visual interpretation of scene including Swansea, the "ugly, lovely town" where Thomas grew up, or Fern Hill, a favourite place he knew as a child, the theme one of his most famous poems.

Around 100 children from eight schools took part in a project called Digital Dylan, creating images which are shown on a computer in the downstairs exhibition room at the Dylan Thomas Centre.

Youngsters took photographs of the places across south west Wales which were significant in Thomas' life, from Swansea - where he was born - to Laugharne in Carmarthenshire where he worked and where he is buried.

Banners

Artist Darren Dobbs, who helped the children on the project, said: "They brought some original ideas to photographs, for some of them it was the first time they had used a camera and they really thought about what they were doing."

Phil Cope was the coordinator of the festival's youth and community projects, which included the Swansea Sea Poem, a display of 18 banners at the Quadrant shopping centre.

More than 200 people, including visitors, contributed lines and comments which were put on the 11-ft tall banners.

"The aim was to work with as many children and adults as possible," said Mr Cope.