Alison Mary Watkins Memorial Archive
Is a proposed name for this family collection.
My mother was a horder and kept maybe 3000 or 4000 letters, photographs, financial documents etc.
and they are all here in this flat waiting to be sorted and catalogued.
She was born on the 16 May 1908 at Filton Glos. and died at Heartlands Hospital on the 22 December 1999.
She worked for 35 years as a Birmingham teacher.
Alison was one of 7 siblings from a
Bristol master tailor’s family who were descended from tailors, court dressmakers and wasitcoat makers
(the Lapham family includes an uncle, a
GWR engine driver William Ball born 1830,
mariners Philip Evans River Avon , Bristol who retired and kept a pub)
Alison was educated et the C of E primary school
Filton, then studied at
Colston Girls School Bristol (school reports and magazines survive ) and on to
Brighton Teachers Training college from 1926 to 1928
Alison took the first job offered after she passd her final exams, which was with
City of Bham LEA She told me she was nearly penniless after two years of study.
She met another
old Colstonian, whi was married to a banker, in News Street Birmingham and was invited to her home where she was introduced to my father.
In
Birmingham she lived in digs and the young pair spent the school holidays apart at their respective family homes and wrote many letters.
She married ?1933 my father
Alfred Henry Watkins (called David) who was the accountant with the
National Provincial Bank, Horsefair,Birmingham (He was born
17 August 1907 Usk Monmouthshire ie Gwent)
They lived in
Sutton Coldfield in "the Cottage" and I was born 1936.
AHW was appointed as accountant at NP Solihull High Street Branch which was then on the corner of Station road.
They moved and Alison lived at
230 Widney Lane Solihull B91 3JY from 1938 until her death,but her husband was lost at sea when HMS Somali sank in 1942
I was sent away to prep school in 1944 and then to Clifton College Bristol and she kept my many letters home and school reports.
AMW went back to supply teaching , and then she was appointed deputy head of
Dixon Road Primary School with responsibility for the infants - reception class.
She was a member of
West Midlands bridge club for 30 years and a hobby investor worth £300 000 circa when she died
The transcription below of one of her letters has been emailed to my cousins and children.
Note >>> I discussed reading these letters with Alison during her last illness - in order to get to know my father (died 1942) and promised I would wait until after her death.
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My father Alfred Watkins jnr - whom Alison nicknamed David, - was a pipe smoker and saved these 17 letters and one photo in a tobacco pouch so I call them
the tobacco pouch letters
{Envelope}
(postmark -
Birmingham 9.45PM 6 SEP 1933
stamp - 1 1/2 Pence King George Vth (THREE HALFPENCE))
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A. H. Watkins Esq
WoodBANK
Usk
Mon.
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{Tobacco Pouch letter
no. 1 of 17}
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7th hour
of the
6th
evening
of the
9th
month
(formatted to the right "7th hour" level with "willow tree"}
Under the delicate willow tree,
In the setting sun's last gleams,
This letter I dedicated to thee, Although a little late it seems!
A poetic address -- but I cannot emulate Orlando & write stanza after stanza. "God be praised", said he.
Disconsolate I stood alone at
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the bus stop last night -- & knowing my sore need of comfort they sent me a brand new bus from Handsworth Wood so I had a comforted journey! They are lovely vehicles, the public is becoming a pampered ninny! It was exceedingly fresh as I walked up C. E?, road at 1130 only in my little gingham! So I needed the hot milk & dared Bob's most fearsome growls to warm it! And so to bed.
This morning your letter, your photographs, a delightful
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combination arrived. I took them all to school, repacked photos & had to go to the General P.O. with them being Wednesday I do hope they arrive safely & meet with approval. I enclose her letter as I thought it most charming. So you shall keep the proofs for some time. A pity they could not have been used to clinch a deal at H.O. Monday ! ! ! ! But I guessed it all
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was quite satisfactory. I guessed too, you'd never stay in London long in this heat. Yes isn’t Bond Street exotically priced? I thought your Variety performance an awful washout & disappointment. Why on earth didn't you see something more restricted to London only. You [k]now - tch, tch.
[ ]
It was such a fair morning that we (two classes 93 kids + 2 teachers) sallied forth to the common for a nature walk. Delicious[!]
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We browsed under oak trees & collected acorns, we ransacked the hedges for every miserable little black berry that was there! They kept bringing me one isolated in the middle of small grimy paws which I firmly but sweetly refused! Not wishing for Appendicitis plus their germs! We returned clasping berries of all kinds -- an odd buttercup & a couple of dandelions and a leaf or two!
And so back to the ordinary routine. The days are really flying. I hope they continue
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to do so right up to October. I've finished reading "Frost in May" it's a curious book -- giving one very full glimpses of convent education & the effect of R.Cism on various types of girls. And it ends rather like "Madchen in Uniform," (emotionally that is) with one of the chief characters[,] a girl of 14, tragically upset & disgraced, & sent from the convent. -- Into thin air apparently. I should think the RC.s would censor the book severely.
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The nun's methods with children, I could hardly call modern, nor yet good and wise from a psychological standpoint. They are crafty to get what they want out of a child. And full of petty rewards & penalties, which is a sign of their fundamental weakness. I don't really think it would have interested you however. So I should begin next on Arnot Robertsen's. How priceless about your Australian aunt - she sounds
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most enthusiastic about your lesser half !
Oh -- a nice greeting waited me for tea tonight, a gentle reminder of my debt to the Croft Club! So I now pay -- alas, they might have forgotten me!
Present dreams, & swim in the morning early, & get Mary Rennie to go with you. (Oh tell her I made all enquires & the post had been permanently filled & the connection of private pupils bought by a man!! ) Night. Night
sleep lots, eat lots
& enjoy tout la temps.
Alison
{comment}
[editorial insertion]
/page number/
I speculate that she planned to marry in October 1933??? or be reunited in Birmingham???
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My mother and father tended to spend summers and holidays separately at their parents' homes.
Mary was one of my father’s best friend's, Peter Rennie's, sister. - of the auctioneer family of Usk,
Swimming would be in the river Usk - probably north of Usk where there is a flood plain and big meander, where the river is deeper and slower,
and a little sandy beach where I nearly drowned when paddling out of my depth, I saw the greenness of the water as it closed over my head, and debated with myself whether to cry for help, my little mind decided it was more important to breathe, so I repeatedly jumped off the sandy bottom and grabbed a breath each time my face came above the surface of the water - then big cheerful Mr Philips grabbed me.
We were out picnicking with the Phillips’s, who were next door neighbours to "The Haven" - Monmouth Road, Usk, Monmouthshire (now Gwent) - Solicitor Alfred Snr. and Blanche Watkins's retirement bungalow. Their other neighbours were "The Princes".
