For the amusement of visitors to her house in Petts Wood, Kent, Kathleen Watkins dispensed stories about her childhood with the same charm that she dispensed tea and biscuits. She told stories of her piano teacher, Mr Potter, and how her mother provided Mr Potter with a huge meal while he offered the occasional musical tip; there were stories about her first suitor, Freddie Fox, who, at every opportunity and with a dramatic flourish of his arm, displayed a shiny wristwatch.

It was over the fireside that Kathleen gently raked over the embers of childhood and she recorded her memories - of Freddie Fox; her piano teacher; her family, her school and her friends - in a series of essays called ‘Speak of the Spring’. These essays were written when she lived above us - in a flat in our house in Christchurch Road, South London.

At that time, she attended a writing class at the ‘City Lit’ run by Naomi Lewis. Kathleen always recalled her classes with great affection and the feeling must have been mutual for Kathleen was a very entertaining story teller. A letter from a publisher dated 18 November 1953 - a letter that Kathleen left with the typescripts of her essays comments: ‘if Naomi Lewis thinks she can fund another publisher for this book as it stands I should certainly let her try’ - interest indeed from someone who became a prominent critic and promoter of children’s fiction. But another letter - of Dec 19 1954 quotes an anonymous reader’s report:

‘The reader’s report on ‘Speak of the Spring’ said, “I found this manuscript absolutely charming, but even so I don’t think it would be a successful book, because although each chapter of reminiscences is delightful in itself, they are a little too uneventful” But Kathleen stoked up the embers of her childhood and very often, they caught alight. Stories, articles and poems were published which exemplify the whole.' 

Kathleen Watkins was born and lived in the suburbs of Manchester which she recalls with a child’s imagination and an adult sensibility. A Manchester tram becomes a golden chariot which transports her to the public library which is similarly endowed. But a few stories reveal other aspects of Kathleen’s childhood. An illness forced her to wear a leg brace which adds a poignancy to her description of Catriona and the bouncing ball and, although Kathleen recovered from this illness, it ended a theatrical career. She had joined the Stockport Repertory Theatre - she often spoke of having played the part of ‘Rebecca West’ and Ibsen became a favoured playwright, along with her beloved Checkov - and she had also won a place at a local drama school.

Another story, ‘The Elocution Lesson’, hints at the poetry that she later wrote. In the nineteen sixties, many of her children’s poems were published by ‘Child Education’ and Mr Myerscough from ‘Music in the Family’ makes a public appearance in her poem:

Chimney Sweep

 But there is one childhood friend who does not feature in her essays. Kathleen reveals in her story ‘Cricket in the Avenue’, that cricket was one of the loves of her life. She wrote an article for ‘The Cricketer’ in May 1975 which began: ‘My first memories of Neville Cardus go back to an autumn morning fifty years ago. From the summer when, as a small girl, I was given an old bat, cricket absorbed me beyond all matters.’ 

Kathleen had read the writings of the ‘Cricketer’ in her father’s ‘Manchester Guardian’ (Neville Cardus wrote a cricket column under the pen name ‘The Cricketer’) and she preserved all his cuttings in scrapbooks. It was a school-mistress who suggested that she sent her carefully made books to the paper and a subsequent meeting with Neville began a friendship that lasted over fifty years. Kathleen recalled one escapade with Cardus, that she considered so noteworthy, she informed the ‘Daily Telegraph’ who published her letter:

Lady in Lord’s

SIR - MCC’s decision to hold a ballot on admitting women members (report Oct.26) reminds me of the occasion during the cricket season of 1936 or 37 when the proud possession of a Middlesex Ladies Membership ticket allowed me to sit in the stand by the Green Mound on the left side of the Pavilion.One day Neville Cardus of the ‘Manchester Guardian’ suggested that it might be possible to smuggle me into the pavilion to see the portraits of long gone cricketing heroes. Removing my large straw hat, I stole soberly down the long length of floor behind a row of ageing heads ranged along the Long Room windows, blocking the cricket from vie“You are the only woman, excepting the Queen, ever to set foot in the Pavilion,” said Cardus as I retrieved my hat from behind the Press Box. I view with some astonishment that I still share, with the present Queen, this delectable honour.’

(Nov 1990)

Both Kathleen and Neville Cardus were formed by a Manchester childhood and he would have loved Kathleen’s stories of childhood cricket and what would Cardus, the music critic, have made of ‘Music in the Family’? It was with Cardus at the ‘Old Trafford’ that Kathleen met her future husband, Eric Watkins. Neville Cardus recalls their marriage in a letter dated March 22 1935:

Dear Kathleen,

This is the last letter I will ever send to you as Kathleen Higenbottom - and perhaps it is as well, because I never could spell Higenbottom correctly. I wish you the most tremendous happiness as ‘Mrs’ - good heavens it seems only last year that you were a little girl at ‘Old Trafford’ wearing soft shoes and a big hat, and walking through the rainy streets of Manchester with me.

You will always be Kathleen to me.

Bless you

Cricketer.

Speak of the Spring was written on the top floor of this house