digital after taking part in a pilot scheme. Homes were given digital receivers for each of their televisions. A helpline was set up for residents' teething problems, and one-to-one support was made available to the elderly. After three months, the households were asked if they wanted to keep the digital services or revert to analogue only. More than 85% of households responded and 98% voted to retain the digital services. Hence at the end of March 2005, the analogue channels, BBC One Wales, ITV1 and S4C, radiating from the Ferryside transmitter, were switched off leaving BBC Two Wales as the only analogue channel remaining. Viewers wanted to keep this channel because it provided certain programmes that the digital equivalent, BBC 2W, did not show. Notable people Notable ex-residents of the village include the General Sir Thomas Picton of Iscoed Mansion, a former governor of Trinidad who died at the Battle of Waterloo, Hugh Williams, the 19th century Chartist lawyer who played a prominent role in the Rebecca Riots and the portrait and landscape painter Gordon Stuart (five of whose portraits can be found at the National Portrait Gallery, including those of Kingsley Amis, Dylan Thomas and Huw Wheldon). The parasitologist J. W. W. Stephens, FRS, was born in Ferryside in 1865. George Parry, a metallurgical engineer and prolific inventor of Ebbw Vale Steelworks retired to Ferryside in 1866 and died on 6 February 1873 at his residence Steel Villa. Dylan Thomas was a regular visitor to Ferryside, both as a child and later when he lived in Laugharne. His maternal great-aunt, Amy, had married Captain David Jones, the Ferryside coxswain. They lived at Alpha House in Eva Terrace. Their son, David, ran the Dorothy Café next to the Ship Inn; he was followed there by his son, Raymond, who was Thomas’ second cousin. Thomas’ drinking in the White Lion, and his friendship with Dick Bright of 2, Neptune Villas, is described by Bright's niece, Beryl Hughes. Thomas' childhood holidays in Ferryside have been described by Stanford-ffoulkes, a descendant of Amy and David Jones. There is more on Dylan Thomas and Ferryside, with photos and a family tree, at Dylan and Ferryside Ferryside may have been an influence in the writing of Under Milk Wood. Llareggub's occupational profile as a town of seafarers, fishermen, cockle gatherers and farmers has been examined through an analysis of the returns in the 1939 War