Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

remember this fat figure diving to the right in his white sun hat and catching it.” During that tour, Allan had taken up an introduction offered by Les Spence, at one time honorary secretary at Glamorgan, and called on Spence’s old friend Oliver Walker, Peter’s father. A former leader writer for the Western Mail , Walker senior had emigrated to South Africa, where he was a much respected literary editor of The Star in Johannesburg and would later become an outspoken opponent of the apartheid system, more than once offering his home as a clandestine meeting place for the young, still little-known Nelson Mandela. This was the home to which Allan had come round for dinner, bringing with him a still treasured memento for young Peter Walker – the dirty old sun hat in which he had taken the catch which had made such a lasting impression on the young boy in the crowd at Durban. Peter owes much to Allan, an early advocate that he should cut his pace as a bowler and, crucially, the man who first implanted the Glamorgan creed that fielding wins matches. 58 Back on the County Circuit Allan catches Jack Cheetham off Jim McConnon in Glamorgan’s dramatic victory against the South Africans at Swansea.