Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

behind the wheel of the van delivering to customers in all the outlying villages. “The shop paid for our education,” he says. With living accommodation behind and above the shop, there was no further need for the house in Ladysmith. The shop became the family home and the children remember vast refrigerators that were always good for raiding for a tasty bacon snack. The shop’s business has changed with the gentrification of Usk. Now it is home to a therapist who offers holistic massage, lifestyle management and body shaping. But in its heyday it provided a welcome bed for the night for players from Swansea and beyond when Glamorgan were playing in Cardiff. Don Shepherd, whose home was in the Gower peninsula, was one who often appreciated the Watkins’ hospitality. He remembers well the times that he and Bernard Hedges slept over the shop, though the building’s location on the main road through the town to Pontypool brought a few disturbed nights. “Lorries went thundering through and you could feel the whole area shaking.” The Strain Becomes Too Much 93 The therapist’s shop that was once a dairy. The memorably named neighbour has also moved in since the Watkins gave up their shop.