Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

broad boundaries remains, still catering for tennis, now with impressive floodlights, though it is no longer home to the once popular bowls club. Across the meadow just beyond the cricket field flows the river that shares its name with the town, seldom as high or as fast as it once was, though still bringing an occasional threat of flooding to the lower-lying buildings in the centre of the town. Times were hard in the 1930s. Jack Watkins found what work he could as a labourer, while Mary spent most of her time caring for the children, supplementing the family income by helping out in local shops. But however stretched the purse, there was always good food on the table as Jack made the most of the large garden behind the cottage. “He was always out in his garden,” says Allan. “It was an absolute joy – with everything in lines.” Jack’s green fingers ensured a constant supply of vegetables, while there was more work for the children helping to feed the chickens, ducks and pigs. In later years, when the war brought rationing and shortages, Selwyn, nearly ten years Allan’s junior and the self- confessed rebel of the pair, did his bit to keep the family self- sufficient with some discreet poaching by the river. “I’ve caught salmon with my bare hands,” he says. “And rabbits – wait to see which way the farmer was going and then poach the rabbits!” Allan in his time had also poached a few fish. “I used to watch the bailiff coming down, run away and then come back when he’d gone past.” Jack Watkins had been under age when he had enlisted to fight in the Great War. One day he had disappeared and before he could be traced he was in France, serving in the trenches. Fortunate to survive, he returned bearing the scar of a shrapnel wound in his side, a reminder of the harrowing times of which he never cared to speak to his children. Allan remembers him as a gentle even-tempered man: “My father never lifted a hand to any of us. Early Days at Usk 9 The five children. From left: Selwyn, Millie, Sylvia, Allan, Dorothy