Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

Chapter One Early Days at Usk “Now before you go, Albert, you will get the kindling ready for the fire in the morning. And don’t forget!” “Albert, before you go, you will go and turn those potatoes over.” Allan Watkins still remembers how his baptismal name, only discarded when he entered the first-class game, so often prefaced his father’s attempts to impose some discipline on a young son bent only on an early escape to the cricket field. Albert John Watkins was born on 21 April 1922 at Usk in Monmouthshire. The second of Jack and Mary Watkins’ five children and the older of their two sons, it was as Albert that he travelled through childhood and into early adult life. The change to Allan came when, as an aspiring Glamorgan cricketer, he became the target of autograph hunters. “I wish I had a shorter 7 The Mill Street cottage (second door from the right) where Allan spent his childhood