Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

But mum would. My God she would!” Jack’s experiences in the war, Selwyn believes, helped mould his character. “He was very docile, my father, like Allan in a way,” he says. There were few luxuries, but Allan talks fondly of his parents and looks back on a happy childhood in which he had one overriding passion – sport. Despite making sure that he pulled his weight with jobs around the home, his parents always encouraged his interest in cricket. Jack Watkins’ first passion may have been for his garden, but he still made time to care for the square at the cricket club. An all-round sportsman, he had been a useful bowler for Usk, and he was still taking wickets for the second eleven when Allan first began playing in the senior team. The academic side of school life held few attractions for Allan. “All the reports came in and said, ‘Albert is not interested in his lessons. All he wants to do is get into the playground and get a ball or bat. He’s got a one track mind – and that’s sport.’ That’s what my first master put in my report. My mother gave me a clip at the side of the head about six times because of the reports.” From the local church school Allan moved on to Usk Grammar School. He recalls no searching examination “or I wouldn’t have passed in. I learnt less there than I did at the first school. I don’t blame the teachers. I just wouldn’t work.” Even the woodwork class saw Allan finding an outlet for his sporting ambitions. “I got sent home because I went and cut a piece of wood and made a bat. I made this bat and we were playing in the school yard with it and the headmaster came up. ‘Where did you get that bat from?’ I didn’t lie. I said, ‘Well, sir...’ He said, ‘Come with me.’ So he took me into the woodwork shed and he took the piece I’d sawn off and he joined it together. He said, ‘Funny how the grain meets.’ Two of us were involved. We were sent home. Off we went, then after two streets one of the boys came running after us and said, ‘The headmaster says you’d better come back.’” School lessons behind him and his household chores discharged, summer evenings would see Allan rushing up to the cricket ground, not to return until he heard his mother’s call from the stile: “Albert, isn’t it time you were in bed?” For the youngsters their evenings at the ground usually meant fetching the ball for the senior players in the nets. “Then one day – I’d got a bit bigger, I suppose – they said, ‘Come on, young boy, have a bowl.’ But for two or three seasons I could only bowl. I couldn’t bat or go into the 10 Early Days at Usk