Time to start again with a real gem.

Right across Swansea this week there has been the sound of tears, stamping of feet and whales of despair at the start of a new school year.  Anyway, that’s enough about the teachers.

September is an odd time for a new start. Shouldn’t it be January, the start of a new calendar or maybe the start of new life in spring? I suppose that for anyone who has been through the British education system September is synonymous with a starting school in a new class, satchels, pencil cases and a new school uniform usually slightly too big because you had to have enough room in the sleeves or hems to allow for growth.

So year after year as the summer holidays start to fade into the dim distant past and the evenings start drawing in I still find myself feeling that it’s time to start afresh, a time to plan, a time for fresh ideas and projects.  I know that I’m a lucky man, sometimes a phone call or letter or more usually an email can start me haring off in a completely new direction.  That happened last Tuesday.

I’d been meaning to catch up with an old friend called Wyn for weeks but with 5 family weddings and our summer season of Cappuccino Girls in Mumbles completely taking over my life this summer it had been impossible to meet. In the end Wyn lost patience and decided to send me something in the post, and what a little jewel he sent me.

Gwen Watkins

I have known the Watkins family for many years. My sons Jackson and Lewis had been in school with Keiron and Marley Watkins.  They’d played in the same school and club football teams.  I had spent many wet and windy afternoons standing at the side of some football pitch or another either with their dad Conrad or their Grandmother Gwen. It was always good to stand next to Con but I must admit that I was always secretly delighted when Gwen was in charge of the Watkins boys because I loved to hear her stories.

Vernon Watkins with Dylan Thomas – 2 of the Kardomah Boys

Gwen had been married to the poet Vernon Watkins who had tragically died far too young.  Vernon had been one of the Kardomah Boys, that Bohemian group of writers, musicians, artist and communists who would often share a coffee together when Swansea city centre stood proud in all its glory.  Before the Luftwaffe destroyed our beautiful, ugly, lovely town centre these young men would gather to talk Einstein and Epstein, Garbo and Picasso and of course girls.  The most famous of this group would be Dylan Thomas, so much so that his greatness has often been allowed to overshadow far too much the other talented members of this band of artistic misfits.

The original Kardomah in Castle Street Swansea

I think it’s fair to say Vernon was one a Dylan Thomas fan.  Vernon admired his work so much that he might have allowed his friend to take their friendship for granted.  But that’s what real friends do, they make allowances and when they see greatness in their friends, then maybe, they make too many allowances. Whilst it’s said Dylan often used his friends as his personal bank Vernon actually became a bank manager. You can see a Blue Plaque on the bank where he worked for 38 years on the corner of St Helen’s Road and Beach Street. He was a family man who stayed home in the evenings to write. It was only when he retired that he maybe allowed his real passion for writing to have free rein.

The Blue Plaque for Vernon Watkins on the corner of St Helen’s Road and Beach Street

In October 1967 he was in Seattle where he had gone to teach a course on modern poetry.  At the time he was being considered for the post of Poet Laureate.  Sadly, Vernon was taken ill after a game of tennis and passed away far from his beloved Wales.

I didn’t know all of that when I first met Gwen but I soon found myself researching the story of Vernon Watkins after she had dropped some little titbit about her previous life during one of our conversations.  The first thing I found of interest was where they had met.  20 years ago Bletchley Park was a name I had heard of but it was before it had started to receive the attention and gratitude that it now has in our society.  Bletchley Park was the home of the code breakers who managed to decipher the Nazi codes.  I remember Gwen telling me that her husband had loved puzzles and would even make up special word games for their in children as they were growing up.

Gwen then and now

Vernon was a shy young man but Gwen had met him there and they had married in 1944 in London.  That all sounded very exciting but it was a throw away sentence that really captured my imagination.  Dylan Thomas should have been the best man but he got drunk on the way and never turned up. I was stunned to hear this little lady tell me first had that she had been left at the altar by Dylan Thomas.  Of course he wrote Vernon a lovely letter which explained as only Dylan could how he had tried his best but life and beer had got in the way.  Vernon forgave him and Gwen said she had as well, although I was never completely sure if she was really telling me the truth.

I just loved to hear the odd phrase or sentence that only someone who ‘was really there’ would say.  I remember one afternoon we were talking about broadcasting as she knew I was an occasional presenter on BBC Radio Wales. ‘Ah those soft Welsh Cambridge accents’ as Dylan would say.  I agreed, then I stopped for a moment.  Gwen wasn’t telling me something she had read in a book, she was remembering Dylan Thomas say them.

Anyway, back to the package I got from my friend Wyn, the little jewel.  I opened the package and read the letter.  The package contained a short play Gwen had written many years before called Kardomah Voices. She had given a copy to Wyn and he was wondering whether we might be able to do something with it as we approached the 50 anniversary of Vernon’s death.  I checked the dates and realised that we had about a month to come up with a possible plan.

Gwen’s grandson Marley Watkins ex Mumbles Rangers, now Norwich and Wales!

I thought it would be good to have a chat with Gwen herself.  I rang her and she immediately invited me to pop in for a chat. As we talked about her grandson Marley who is currently playing for Norwich and is also a member of the Welsh Football Squad we both looked back fondly on our days spent getting soaked at Underhill Park.  It was then I asked Gwen whether she would mind if I tried to put on a ‘script in hand’ performance of the play and to try to pull it all together in time for the anniversary on Sunday 8^th October.

Radio Drama with scripts in hand

She said yes and since then it’s been a bit of a whirlwind. I’ve been speaking to lots of different actors and in the next week I hope to finalise a cast.  We will perform the play at The Hyst on Swansea High Street and we will broadcast it live to the world via Facebook and YouTube and our guest of honour will be Gwen herself.

The play will be broadcast live on https://www.facebook.com/thehyst/ Sunday 8th October 2017

It’s the start of a new term for me and what a great project to fall into my lap on the first week back in harness.