Chapter 3.
Back at work the following Monday in Merthyr rugby club, Wat does a morning on the maintenance with Cliff and goes:
‘I’m into fine French wines now. There’s Vouvray, Montrachet, Dubonnet, but my favourite little wine is a Welsh one: Pont ar du lais.’
‘I had a dog once. A Rottweiler. Well, it was half Rottweiler and half sheepdog. It used to round up the sheep together – and then kill them.’ ‘No, no,’ he insists looking around to see the reaction.
‘I came home last evening, Wat continues, ‘and my wife was in tears.’
She said ‘I made you a lovely meat pie, and the dog has eaten it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘We’ll get another dog.’
‘This girl meets this boy and she says ‘My boyfriend’s a brain surgeon. Only trouble is, he’s just an apprentice and he has to start at the bottom – he’s a hospital porter,’ he continues with Cliff laughing appreciatively.
Wat explains to the club members in the bar, ‘I had to fill in this form and it said, ‘Sex?’’ ‘I put ‘Yes, please.’
After an interval for a few pints, Wat comes out with one of his favourite gags: ’What’s the difference between a bishop and a man taking a bath?’
‘One has got his soul full of hope…’ he pauses, ‘and the other‘s got his hole full of soap’ he chuckles.
'Mr Davies, we're terribly sorry, but we’ve lost your father after the operation,’ the matron at Singleton hospital, Miss Charles, in starched tunic and white headdress, explains to Watkin and Diane who have attended an appointment to discuss the progress of their parent who is undergoing an operation for cancer.
‘He was doing well with the radiotherapy, but the surgeon found an inoperable carcinoma in his bladder the size of an egg that has resulted, unfortunately, in his death under the anaesthetic.'
With a sob, Watkin attempts to say something in reply to her.
‘Thank you, Miss Ch...’ but is overcome with emotion. Diane asks 'Wasn’t there anything they could do?'
'Sadly with the present state of the cancer technology, we were unable to save him. In a few years’ time the medical procedures will undoubtedly be improved, but I know that is no consolation to you, Mr and Mrs Davies,' Miss Charles offered, sympathetically, straightening her tunic and headdress.
‘We’ll have to look after my Mum a lot more now, and what with there being no inheritance – Dad was with the council and there is only the burial fund,’ Wat explains travelling back to Wimmerfield Avenue in the car, Diane sobbing silently.
***
One year later, Wat has been presented with a new son and heir. He’s taking a short on his way home from a job in Carmarthen at the ‘Marquis’ in Fforestfach and back to his old form: ‘My wife’s just had a baby’ he goes, sipping his whiskey. ‘They showed me around in the maternity ward at Fairwood Hospital, and I saw all those babies bawling their heads off with their mouths wide open. They asked me to select mine. I chose a vase.’
‘But I still enjoy sex after the baby was born, Yes, next door,’ he continues on his second whiskey.
‘A man goes to the doctor.’
‘I'm afraid I have some very bad news, the doctor says. ‘You're dying,
and you don't have much time left.’
‘Oh, that's terrible! says the man. "How long have I got?’
‘Ten,’ the doctor says sadly.
‘Ten?’ the man asks. ‘Ten what? Months? Weeks? What?’
‘Nine, eight...’ Wat goes, looking at the second hand on his watch.
Ordering a third whiskey, Wat continues, ‘A married man was having an affair
with his secretary. One day, their passions became too much for them and they
went to her house, where they made love madly all afternoon. Exhausted from the
fantastic sex, they fell asleep, awakening around 7pm. As the man put on his
clothes, he told the woman to take his shoes outside and rub them through the
grass and mud. Puzzled, she nevertheless agreed to do it. He slipped into his
shoes and drove home. ‘Where have you been?’ demanded his wife when he entered
the house.
‘Darling, I can't lie to you. I've been having an affair with my Secretary and
we've been having mad, fantastic sex all afternoon. I fell asleep and didn't
wake up until seven o'clock."
His wife glanced down at his shoes and said, ‘You lying bugger! You've been playing golf!’
In reality, Diane was in tears at Mount Pleasant hospital, where the baby was born. ‘What’s the matter, Di, Why are you crying, love?’ says Watkin who’s been waiting outside for long hours before the delivery. Men in those days were not allowed in delivery wards, and were expected to wait in corridors.
‘They’ve given me the wrong baby. That wasn’t our baby, Wat. They made a mix up and handed me the wrong baby. I’m sure of it. Our child has blue eyes and I’d remember that little face anywhere.’
‘This is your infant, Mrs Davies,’ said chief sister Evans. ‘Apparently, there has been some confusion over the names of Davies, a common name in this part of Wales, on the little name tag around the baby’s ankle.’ And, although traumatised and highly emotional, Diane accepted her child into loving arms and cradled him in a swaddling band that she had kept for so long in her trousseau.
‘Oh, Watkin, you know I’m using the Hoover twin tub washing machine’ she goes at home a few weeks later. I have to haul all the wet clothes out of the washing section and dump them into the spin dryer section,’ Diane bemoans. ‘How can I get supper ready when I’m up to my elbows in nappies? I have to soak the used ones in Milton sterilising fluid in the plastic bucket and wring them out before I can put them in the machine. The kitchen windows are all steamed up and there’s water all over the floor. ’ So Wat pops out to the ‘Commercial’ in Killay for a quick pint, a sausage roll and a bag of Smith’s crisps, the ones with the blue twist up packet of salt inside.
Whilst there, finishing his sausage roll and carefully spreading the salt on his crisps, he cracks his favourite Les Dawson mother in law jokes, ‘I haven’t spoken to my mother-in-law for two years. We haven't quarrelled or anything, it’s just that I don't like to interrupt her,’ he goes, crackling his crisp packet.
‘I really do have a soft spot for my mother in law. It's out in the garden behind the shed’, he continues with a chuckle, although he wasn’t feeling in very good humour inside, due to Diane’s complaining.
Carrying on nonetheless with the Les Dawson patter he goes, ‘I was out shopping the other day, when I saw five women beating up my mother in law. As I stood there and watched, her neighbour, who knew me, said, ‘Well, aren't you going to help?’ I answered, ‘No. Five of them is enough.’ After a few more jokes, Wat potters back up the Gower road to the house and takes an early bed to get away from Di’s continuous nagging - about the nappies, the housework, and the lack of leisure time as she sees it.
When Watkin was in the ‘Marquis’ in Fforestfach, he’d met Mike Rabbaiotti, the race manager of the greyhound racing track in Ystrad Road, who’d invited him to install outdoor lighting at the stadium. A very big and long lasting job raised Wat’s hopes about the future. It meant constructing lighting pylons around the dog track, and fixing the installation of the mechanical hare that the dogs dive out of their stalls and chase around the perimeter of the track to the finishing line. Down at the dog track one evening, after a successful bet at 4/3 on ‘Prince’ in the 7.15 and an excellent shot in the 7.30 on ‘Daddy’s Boy’ at 13/2, they all adjourn to the track cafe.
‘What’s a husband’s definition of safe sex?’ Watkin starts, pocketing his excellent winnings. ‘When the wife’s away staying with the mother in law,’ he jokes thinking about Diane.
‘My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we married. A good wife always forgives a husband when she’s wrong. My wife dresses to kill. She cooks the same way,’ he rattles them off.
‘If your wife’s shouting at the front door and your dog’s barking at the back door, who do you let in first?’ he asks the betting crowd. ‘The dog’, he answers, ‘at least he'll quiet down after you let him in.’
Watkin concluded his ‘act’ with ‘You know being a comic is the one job where, if you perform badly, people won’t laugh at you.’
‘Hi Di, I’ve bought you a colour TV and a VHS video recorder so that you can record your favourite TV shows, you know, the European Song Festival, and your favourite song, ‘Puppet on a String,’ Watkin goes returning home in the Capri.
I wonder if one day that, you'll say that, you care
If you say you love me madly, I'll gladly, be there
Like a puppet on a string.
Love is just like a merry-go-round
With all the fun of a fair
One day I'm feeling down on the ground
Then I'm up in the air
Are you leading me on?
Tomorrow will you be gone?
I wonder if one day that, you'll say that, you care
If you say you love me madly, I'll gladly, be there
Like a puppet on a ... string.
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You can record old songs by Petula Clark, Lita Roza, Anne Shelton and Frank Ifield; for the kids, [they have two now, Jason and Tracey]; you can record ‘Thunderbirds’ for when they come home from school, and there’s ‘Pan’s People’ on ‘Top of the Pops’. If you want to record something serious there’s ‘All Our Yesterdays’ with Brian Inglis, Watkin continues delightedly. Things are going well at the race track, and his winnings on the dogs are multiplying. He owns a Ford Capri three litre, has installed a disco ball in their bedroom, and his business employs five more men.
Back at the Fforestfach track the hare mechanism is installed and the lighting pylons are going up well. Watkin obtained some of the pylons second hand from Mervyn Jenkins, and he told Cliff, ‘I suspect that Merv’d taken them down from another venue and sold ‘em to us cheap. Typical Merv,’ he said.
In the cafe that afternoon he goes, ‘I like to have a cigarette
after a good meal. Thanks to my wife, I don't smoke,’ smirking, and thinking
about Di’s cooking which is not too bad.
‘What is green and turns red at the flick of a button? A frog in a liquidiser,’
he starts his 70s routine. ‘What do you call an epileptic under a pile of
leaves? Russell.’ Not a joke that could be repeated in contemporary politically
correct times, however. ‘What do you call a man with a spade in his mouth?
Doug,’ he rattles on. ‘What do you call a man with no spade in his mouth?
Douglas. What do you call a man with a seagull
on his head? Cliff’ he continues in fashionable 70s style.
‘I’m married to a lady optician,’ Wat goes, a la Bob Monkhouse. ‘In bed she asks, ‘better like this? better like that? better like this ...’’ The crowd laugh, despite having heard it before.
Now he’s on a roll, Watkin can’t stop. ‘This man,’ he says, ‘goes into a pet shop to ask for the pet monkey he’s bought.’ ‘ I’ve cleaned your cage out,’ the assistant goes.
‘You cheeky bugger,’ he retorts.
‘I’ve got a Scots terrier’ he laughs. ‘So easy for cleaning the car’ he demonstrates with his hands in a waving, washing the car motion.
‘This man goes to the doctor. He says ‘I’ve broken my arm in several places.’ The doctor says ‘Don’t go to those places, then...’’ It gets a good laugh, but Watkin is beginning to worry about Diane. She’s been wearing a see through blouse and short miniskirt that’s quite revealing, and Watkin tells Diane ‘I don’t think your skirt and top are suitable for working in a shop.’
That evening, in an uncharacteristic fit of male chauvinist rage, he burns Diane’s skimpy, transparent blouse in the coal fire and rakes up the ashes in the hearth. ‘Why are you burning my clothes, Watkin?’ she screams, but to no avail, and they spend the night in separate bedrooms.
‘I’m sorry, Di. I don’t know what came over me,’ Watkin begs in the morning. ‘Next winter I’ll take you to Austria skiing in the Tirol, and I’ll make it up to you somehow.’ ‘OK, then, Wat but I don’t see the problem with what I’m wearing, all the other girls are dressed like it, this is the ‘seventies for God’s sake.’ Wat continues to the greyhound track at Fforestfach, and sees to the mechanical greyhound. In those days, the dog owners would encourage the hounds to chase the rabbit by feeding them fresh meat at the end of the race to assuage their natural instincts of the chase, when the dogs would want to tear the mechanical hare to pieces.
Back in the cafe, Wat starts his patter with, ‘My wife phoned me and said she had water in the carburettor. ‘Where are you?’ I said. ‘In the river’, she replied. ‘I went to the dentist’s the other day and he said ‘Your teeth are alright, but your gums have gotta come out.’’ ‘I was in the dentist’s waiting room reading the magazines. They were so old, I went ‘Wasn’t it terrible about that Titanic.’’ ‘Ha Ha. Not like that ... Like that,’ imitating Tommy Cooper, with a characteristic gesticulation of his arms.
‘I bet on ‘Lucky Boy’ at 20 to 1 and he came in at twenty past four.’ That got a good laugh among the gambling fraternity. ‘That joke was so bad, I got a sitting ovation’ he says. ‘I went out one dark night and this bloke says ‘Is there a policeman round here.‘ ‘No,’ I said.’ ‘Stick ‘em up!’
Watkin, Cliff, Mervyn and the other Swansea Sound boys are off to Stradey Park on October, 31st 1972. Llanelli, coached by Carwyn James, beat Ian Kirkpatrick's All Blacks 9-3 in a tremendous victory against the touring side. The pubs famously ran dry by 6pm that day and Watkin and the boys certainly contributed to the drought at the ‘Bridge’ and the ‘Half Moon’ in Llanelli. ‘Roy Bergiers scored a try from his own charge down and Andy Hill scored a terrific long-range pelanty,’ Watkin recounts afterwards. ‘Watkin explains to anyone who’s listening that ‘the captain, Delme Thomas was carried from the field aloft by fans, and local boy, Phil Bennett, had an outstanding game.’
The boys didn’t have tickets for the Barbarians v. New Zealand match the following Spring, but watched it on colour TV at the ‘Poundfold’ in Gower. Watkin recounted that ‘Phil Bennett sidestepped his way past three outflanked and outrun All Blacks. The ball was transferred to JPR Williams, then to hooker John Pullin and on to John Dawes, bypassing Gareth Edwards. John Dawes's dash up the left touchline gave the move terrific momentum, before a burst from flanker Tom David with a long pass out to Derek Quinnell who had numbers, another long pass and a skilful pick up (some say an interception) for Number 9, Gareth Edwards, resulted in a diving touchdown.’
After the match there was a singsong with:
Mae bys Meri-Ann wedi brifo,
A Dafydd y gwas ddim yn iach.
Mae'r baban yn y crud yn crio,
A'r gath wedi sgrapo Joni bach.’
This was followed by Hymns and Arias:
‘Well we were singing hymns and arias
Land of my Fathers,
Ar hyd y nos.'
Then Swansea’s own Badfinger’s
No I can't forget this evening
Or your face as you were leaving
But I guess that's just the way
The story goes
You always smile but in your eyes
Your sorrow shows
Yes it shows
No I can't forget tomorrow
When I think of all my sorrow
When I had you there
But then I let you go
And now it's only fair
That I should let you know
What you should know
I can't live
If living is without you
I can't live
I can't give anymore
I can't live
If living is without you
I can't give
I can't give anymore’
© 2000-2015 AZLyrics.co
Watkin is crying at this one, because he knows it’s nearly over with Diane. She’s been seen out with a handsome, local insurance agent and one evening, on returning home from the dog track, he just spied Di in her yellow Mini Minor travelling up the Gower road. He follows her to see if she’s on an assignation with him, but she catches Wat’s brown Ford Capri in her rear view mirror. Reaching Upper Killay, she turns back and drives to the house in Wimmerfield. On reaching home, Wat enquires peremptorily ‘Where’ve you been’ and Di replies blushing, ‘I went up to see my friend, Elsie, in Derlwyn, Dunvant.’ Wat says, ‘I don’t believe you. You’ve been seen on the dunes on Swansea beach with him and now you’re up Fairwood Common to see him. What’s going on?’ A terrific row ensues, Diane walks out taking the kids, and again ... separate bedrooms.
So for a few nights it’s,‘Hello walls, hello ceiling’ by Ricky Nelson on 78 rpm on the Philips portable record player in the back bedroom of the deserted house in Wimmerfield.
‘Hello walls (hello) how things go for you today?
Don't you miss her since she upped and walked away
And I'll bet you dread to spend another lonely night with me
Lonely walls I'll keep you company.
Hello window (hello) well I see that you're still here.
Aren't you lonely since our darling disappeared?’
© 2003 - 2015 Letras.terra.com
Wat’s jokes have now deteriorated to the point where he’s reciting nursery rhymes at Bridgend rugby club:
‘The boy stood on the burning deck
His feet were covered in blisters
He had no stockings of his own
So he had to wear his sister’s.’
Or the alternative rhyme:
‘The boy stood on the burning deck
His feet were full of blisters.
He tore his pants on a rusty nail
And had to wear his sister's.’
Quite out of sorts, he continues to few laughs:
‘Jack n’ Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
Jill came down with half a crown
But not for fetching water.’
Downing his fourth pint he goes:
‘Hickory dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one
And down he run
Hickory dickory dock.
Or the other version,’ he goes:
‘Hickory dickory dock
Two mice ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
And th’other scaped wiv minor injuries,’ he slurs to no laughter
Disappointed with his lack of success with his jokes, he crawls home to his lonely bed and then resolving to do something about his marriage, he drives around to the mother in law’s place in Brynhyfryd to where Di had decamped with the kids. Wat goes, ‘OK, Di. I’ve fixed up with Reg Bateman for our package tour holiday in Kitzbühel, in Austria.’ Wat has memorised the brochure that Reg Bateman has given him: ‘Few ski resorts have the charisma of this iconic resort, with its celebrated downhill slopes,’ he repeats.
Diane somewhat reluctantly agrees to join him, and two weeks later they take off from Cardiff airport with Lufthansa to Munich from where they travel by air conditioned coach with piped music and onboard toilet to the ski resort.
‘Don’t go up on those high slopes with all them Germans’ Wat goes, but Di doesn’t listen and joins in a skiing party from Stuttgart and has a morning skiing with them. That evening they enjoy the gluhwein that is issued after a day on the slopes, at one of the ski hut bars.
Watkin is now back in form with all his jokes. He starts, consciously targeting the Germans drinking their Löwenbräu. ‘What's a geriatric?’ he asks the assembled drinkers. ‘A German footballer scoring three goals.’ ‘There was an awards ceremony for adverts on TV last week. I fast forwarded the whole thing,’ he continues, sipping his mulled wine. ‘There was a subliminal advert on TV for underarm deodorant. I tried it, but the trouble was it only lasted one tenth of a second.’