Cricket Witness No 3 - The Daffodil Blooms

111 as well as quaffing a bottle or three of fine red wine with poet Dylan Thomas sitting alongside the broadcasting box on the roof of the St. Helen’s pavilion. Even so, Allan’s selection came as something of a bolt out of the blue – “I nearly fell through the floor when I heard“ he later said. “It was Wilf who told me. Then we heard it on the wireless – there was no television – and Molly [his wife] couldn’t believe it as well.” 3 The realisation that the Usk-born player was poised to become the first Glamorgan cricketer to take part in an Ashes Test had sunk in by the time the Welsh county departed Weston-super-Mare, and there were many comments to the all-rounder from well-wishers as the jubilant Glamorgan team boarded their train. With so many Welshmen heading home, the Glamorgan side had plenty of company for the first leg of their journey, but after changing trains at Bristol, Wilf got the team together in one of Allan Watkins (left) seen with Tom Phillips during a Club and Ground match at Ystrad Rhondda in 1948. Clinching the title