Transcript of interview with Ivor Watkins by David Mathias. Early 1980s

Wartime experiences- serving first with the 15th Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and later with the 2nd Battalion, Welsh Regiment. Collection of wartime poems and ditties. Career as trainer and chief instructor.   

[Transcription created July 2025]

Note:
[Due to the quality of the original recordings, originally made on portable cassette recorders in the 1980s, the recording has been heavily processed to enhance the voices captured. In some cases, information is unintelligible. Some inaccuracies may persist. Where information was unintelligible, the transcript uses [?] to mark these occurrences.]

 

 

Tape 1 Side 1

00:00:01 Ivor Watkins

I was a runner at one time and the captain.

00:00:04 Ivor Watkins

Told me, he said, Watkins, make contact. Tell them the Welsh are on their left. I found this crowd in in the farmhouse that, the fact of narrowing.

00:00:17 Ivor Watkins

Yeah. We had the armed [?] on our right and the front was narrowing. And as it was narrowing certain units will be cut out. You see. We went on.

00:00:28 David Mathias

You went on.

00:00:35 Ivor Watkins

Yes. And we came out then. And we were cut off two days before armistice .

00:00:38 Ivor Watkins

On the 13th we started to move. We had a bus ride for the first day.

00:00:41 Ivor Watkins

Every day then we were marching, chasing ‘Jerry’ up. We'd rest for a couple of days, chase up, and we got up into a little place called Flamschen [?]

00:00:50 David Mathias

No.

00:00:52 Ivor Watkins

Just behind Brühl [?] on the 22nd of December.

00:00:58 David Mathias

But the war was over then.

00:00:59 Ivor Watkins

The war was over

00:01:00 David Mathias

So what was Jerry doing then? He was on on on the run back into Germany

00:01:03 Ivor Watkins

Kaput. Kaput. They're giving.

00:01:07 David Mathias

Were they giving themselves up or.

00:01:08 Ivor Watkins

Well, they were straggling you see.

00:01:17 Ivor Watkins

About the last the last couple of days, the band met up with us, you know, get your destination.

00:01:25 David Mathias

This is magnificent.

00:01:26 Speaker 4

Yes, I'll give you that, get it out the way.

00:01:28 David Mathias

How did you come to to? I mean, you were a 15th Welshman

00:01:33 Ivor Watkins

Yes. Well, I had that. I I the 15th we came out, we came out of the line after five days in Ypres

00:01:39 David Mathias

Now.

00:01:43

You got.

00:01:48 Ivor Watkins

And we came out. I always remember one thing. That our relief is coming up in the night and we are the devil of a bashing and you could always tell when you are the bashing major when you beat 2 and aloof doubly you'll be about 6 on the roof. If there were a lot of casualties, you know, until the Quartermaster adjusted rashion to be two [?].

But we cam out after five days after awful morning, and I hear it coming out. I always remember this the officer bringing up our relief. He was from the West Riding, you see

And he come up. And he asked our officer. Are you the Welsh Riders? No, he said, we’re the bloody Welsh walkins. They put that in the paper.

00:02:35 Speaker 3

With the bloody well.

00:02:36 Ivor Watkins

We come out from there, we march then, down through Saint-Omer [?] through Hazebrouck, onto a quiet front and [?] and just above Levante.

00:02:54 Ivor Watkins

Be well, it was a quiet front, but you know where the quiet front is you without wiring. every right. Clearing trenches, drainage and all that sort of thing. Then we were there then until I went on [?] course

00:03:05 David Mathias

Was this after 34. After you had been to Ypres?

00:03:10 Ivor Watkins

Yes, yes, yes. We came down to a quiet front, see, after [?] morning and.

00:03:18 Ivor Watkins

We were there.

00:03:18 Ivor Watkins

And I went to [MC] [course] and then we moved up then to another place called [?] our section did. This the Australians were tunnelling prior to the German advance in March when we were going out there every night as our defense between Jerry and the Australian tunnelling company. We're doing all right because we were sleeping by day in cellars in this little village.

Anyway, we didn't know, but behind us a couple of sheets behind us, 18 LB the batteries Jerry was searching for them. We posted the gas guard every night. The gas guard got killed. We woke up in the morning, thought the brasiers smoke got in our eyes. You see, burning rubbing our eye. What we were doing you see was robbing the mustard gas.

00:04:10 Ivor Watkins

So anyway, within three days I was [wrapped in plaster?] in Yorkshire. Blind.

00:04:15 David Mathias

So you evacuated?

00:04:15 Ivor Watkins

Blind, yes. Wounded.

Yeah, because they they were clearing the casualties out. They knew the advanced was coming. All the casualties, if they were serious, away.

00:04:33 David Mathias

How long were you like that then?

00:04:34 Ivor Watkins

About three months. In Saint Luke's Hospital where I had this sister [staff?] sister that was top notch, she looked after me, with my eyes. Lot of the other fellow never regained their eyesight.

00:04:54 Ivor Watkins

Then I went out again then, the end of July.

00:05:00 David Mathias

[19]18.

00:05:00 Ivor Watkins

Yes. To the second battalion in the First Division.

00:05:05 David Mathias

Why did they send you to the second battalion rather than back to the 15th? 00:05:07 David Mathias

00:05:08 Ivor Watkins

Well, I don't know.

00:05:09 David Mathias

You didn't ask presumably, just do what you were told.

00:05:12 Speaker 3

I was not the reason why we went up to. We were in Dorsey Park and went up to Redcar then to remount. And then we will shout out to Rouen, up to the second battalion First Division. Had to spit and polish then. Then drive through [?] the line, the Hindenburg line.

00:05:35 David Mathias

So you went there with the second battalion for the final push.

00:05:39 Ivor Watkins

Trying to push for the final push yes, yes. Well, this was with the second battalion. And there's no, there's hardly a mention of the Welsh Regiment in that final push. There's a hell of a battle, but that's hardly a word about it.

00:05:57 Ivor Watkins

Then as I say, after this was the last big push. Well then we were hopping over the over the top nearly every day until about two days before the Armistice. When we were cut out then, with the front getting shorter.

00:06:07 David Mathias

Yes, yes. Narrowing down.

00:06:12 Ivor Watkins

Right up into Germany, but I always remember this. In the nights, you’d be, you could look up over up. And see a blaze. A gun firing blaze. But on this night, on the 11th, everything was quiet.

00:06:31 David Mathias

Quiet.

00:06:34 Ivor Watkins

Awe inspiring. Absolutely awe inspiring,

00:06:37 David Mathias
A great relief. But how did you? I mean, were you consripted into the 15th Welsh or did you volunteer?

00:06:45 Speaker 5

Oh no, I did my training with the [two in the fall?] With the South Wales Borderers

 The training battalion, the South Wales Borderers in Kinmel Park.

00:06:50 David Mathias

Up in Rhyl

00:06:55 David Mathias

Yes.

00:06:59 David Mathias

You conscripted into the wall, did you?

00:07:01 Ivor Watkins

Well, yes, yes. Well, I too young. You see, I was.

00:07:02 David Mathias

But you call it papers you know.

00:07:04 Ivor Watkins

Called up when I was just 18, they were calling up at 18 and six months, so we'd get out to France when he was 19, but for some reason or other, whether they were wanted reinforcements there shot a man. They bunged us out there. I was out there about a month before my 19th birthday.

00:07:25 David Mathias

But not in the South Wales Borderers

00:07:27 Ivor Watkins

No, no, no. We were pushed on to the Welsh Regiment.

Not pushed on. We were sent to the Welsh Regiment.

00:07:37 David Mathias

But when you found the Welshman, the 15th Welsh, which of course is a Carmarthenshire Battalion. How did you find them? Where? Where did you join them?

00:07:45 Ivor Watkins

Join them in a little place called proven little place called Proven

00:07:51 David Mathias

That was in [19]17 was it?

00:07:52 Ivor Watkins

Yes, 17. The Assembly before the push was in around Poperinge. But we join them in the in the Proven.

00:08:10 Ivor Watkins

Yes, something perhaps you can take away with you. I got a couple of them.

On my on my 21st birthday, I had leave and wnet up to Cologne. You can have that meeting. Not many of that. That is where this the the peace salute was fired on the banks of the Rine that [?] Brooke there.

00:08:36 David Mathias

Is that Dusseldorf

00:08:37 David Mathias

No, no, in Cologne.

00:08:41 David Mathias

Well, well, well. I've driven along. Yeah, I've. I've driven along this bench. I've been. That's marvelous.

00:08:59 Ivor Watkins

You take each. One another, whichever you feel is like that.

00:09:01 David Mathias

It's very, very kind indeed. Are you sure?

00:09:11 Ivor Watkins

Yes, that's all right. Have whichever one you like.

00:09:16 David Mathias

Very kind indeed. I’ll treasure that.

How did you find these then?

00:09:23 Ivor Watkins

You. Well, they were checked out. Then we went over the Chamber of [?]. Ditched everything.

00:09:37 Ivor Watkins

I think they were conscripting the rag tag and bobtail.

00:09:45 David Mathias

They certainly look it here. And it's addressed to somebody. I can’t read it, it’s not very.

00:09:54 Ivor Watkins

I think I can make it out. Hendrich [?] . And here we all are in in Kinmel Park. Look at this chap here with the rifle.

00:10:07 David Mathias

That's yourself, is it? This is a copy is it?

00:10:32 David Mathias

All these boys were conscripts were they?

00:10:34 Ivor Watkins

Yes, yes, yes.

00:10:35 David Mathias

That’s marvelous. Thank you.

00:10:5 Ivor Watkins

 

There's the  old five that has taken out the outside the museum [?] got a War Museum. He started collecting stuff.

00:11:29 Ivor Watkins

I went on an NCO's course. They give me a well, I bought it in front a book on company [?], which shows the officer going back to the office, take a blowing the whistle and all that sort of thing. I can't find it now. I'll send it on to you in any case. Yeah, you know the, the, the, the difference between the.

00:11:48 David Mathias

Well, that's very kind.

00:11:51 David Mathias

The difference between a company drills then and now.

00:12:41 Ivor Watkins

That was tied down to me.

00:12:44 David Mathias

When you were wounded.

00:12:46 Ivor Watkins

When I come over there.

00:12:51 David Mathias

Are detached.

00:12:54 David Mathias

I did this.

00:12:54 Ivor Watkins

60797 Welsh congregation.

00:13:01 David Mathias

Yes, that's quite right that. Dogtags

00:13:06 Ivor Watkins

My mother got crummy [?]. The lice

00:13:14 David Mathias

You hear so much about these lice. Wasn't really as bad as they make.

00:13:16 Ivor Watkins

Oh, oh, yes, yes, definitely [covered in them]. We'd have. We'd have a new issue of clothing. After waring for about two or three days. All along the seams.

00:13:29 David Mathias

I suppose once they were, once they were amongst you. You couldn't get rid of them.

00:13:35 Ivor Watkins

There we are. That's the.

Take which whichever ever one you like.

00:13:41 David Mathias

Well, that's. I'm just trying to see that's that's the same 28th there. It's the 190th battery RFA.

00:13:48 David Mathias

I see.

00:13:50 Ivor Watkins

Take the two. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Now there were no, there were no. When my sight came back, there were no smoke glasses. So that's what they gave you to wear.

00:13:51 David Mathias

And what did that do?

00:14:04 Ivor Watkins

Take the glare off your eyes.

00:14:08 David Mathias

That’s an early pair of sunglasses, really. Good grief. Well, I'm sure the museum would cherish this. I'm sure they won't know this. It does actually take the glare away, doesn’t it.

00:14:16 Ivor Watkins

Yes, yes.

00:14:21 Ivor Watkins

Yes, yes, I I gave him my hat and the badge and the and a book that I bought all a soldier wants to know in France 1 Penny, by post.

00:14:38 David Mathias

So would you give you French phrases and things like this?

00:14:40 Ivor Watkins

Yes

00:14:55 Ivor Watkins

But this photograph you took of me.

00:15:02 David Mathias

I'm gonna have it in englarged. Lovely. Absolutely lovely. Yes, right. Yes.

00:15:13 David Mathias

Well, these are. Yes, I remember these gentlemen.

00:15:22 David Mathias

You may want to take a photograph of the.

00:15:23 Speaker 6

Yeah.

00:15:28 Speaker 6

Ohh it's really it's really.

00:15:36 Ivor Watkins

Of the the goat.

00:15:37 David Mathias

We don't.

00:15:39 David Mathias

Remember, in a way, the Frenchman.

00:15:40 Speaker 5

And that is the way.

00:15:42 Speaker 6

Yeah, in the garden there.

00:15:47 David Mathias

Lovely. Lovely.

00:15:47 Ivor Watkins

But there is another.

00:15:50 David Mathias

This is another little bit.

00:15:51 Speaker 6

Now that.

00:15:53 Speaker 6

Ohh twice.

00:15:55 David Mathias

Representation.

00:15:55 Ivor Watkins

Others say it was it was sad, but it was very.

00:16:00 David Mathias

Good. It's very. It was very fitting day.

00:16:02 David Mathias

Very.

00:16:04 Ivor Watkins

Thing that sun, the sun shone all the time, all the time.

00:16:20 David Mathias

Now, here's me doing the thinking.

00:16:23 Ivor Watkins

Somebody talked about this. You there of our our video blog taking the.

00:16:29 Ivor Watkins

Taking the fame of it, yes, so we've got, we've got a video of the whole trip, we're going to have coffee, yes.

00:16:40 David Mathias

Yes.

00:16:42 David Mathias

Mr Morris.

00:16:44 Ivor Watkins

Gwynoro[?]

00:16:47 Ivor Watkins

Gwynoro[?], I've got that thaing of pushing  his legs through his trousers to far.He was a character. 

00:17:00 David Mathias

They were a fit lot , there's no doubt about it. It's all you know.

00:17:02 Ivor Watkins

That that is the scene. The choir there and mural is down there somewhere.

00:17:07 Ivor Watkins

With the white hat, yes, yes.

00:17:10 David Mathias

Yes, I can see. Yeah, I can see you, actually, you're still.

00:17:12 David Mathias

On the weather for us, yes, I think.

00:17:14 Ivor Watkins

There's no well party.

00:17:16 Ivor Watkins

Issues that you as a Welsh.

00:17:19 Ivor Watkins

Yes, please do it.

00:17:20 David Mathias

I was doing the ceremony here, just along from.

00:17:23 Ivor Watkins

Us. Yeah. Albert. Albert Evans is son-in-law. He went into the hamlet where we had lunch and made the made the omelette out the six eggs.

00:17:25 Speaker 5

That's that.

00:17:38 Ivor Watkins

That's Bryn Owen

00:17:39 David Mathias

Oh yeah, he was very proud that day wasn’t he.

00:17:43 Ivor Watkins

Yes, he was. There's a lot of ways coming down. Then he can stay with us when he's down there

00:17:49 Ivor Watkins

And there is me during the dedication to the yes, yes, saying my peace you know.

00:17:58 Speaker 6

There, and “they shall grow not old as we”..

00:18:01 David Mathias

Yes, yes.

00:18:03 Ivor Watkins

Time shall not wear those, and those are the 2 graves there [?]

00:18:10 David Mathias

Yeah, I know, right?

00:18:13 Ivor Watkins

outside the hotel.

00:18:17 Ivor Watkins

You know what?

00:18:20 David Mathias

Vote yes.

00:18:21 Ivor Watkins

But I not quite sure where this Dyl Parry Morris had his military medals somewhare around there.

That's George Richardson. That's me. Yeah, but these are, I think this this was up in time clock.

00:18:35 David Mathias

So sure, since was on the television.

00:18:38 David Mathias

Yes, I have, yes, yeah.

00:18:39 Ivor Watkins

Time cut.

00:18:40 Speaker 3

And those forces that the other day.

00:18:42 David Mathias

Well, these are the pictures were over to or.

00:18:48 David Mathias

So All in all, a good experience for you going back there?

00:18:52 Ivor Watkins

Ohh, yes, yes.

00:18:54 Ivor Watkins

The time before we had gone, when I I single, you know, we've gone to Brussels and then touring from there, you see. You go to somewhere else and go touring from there. So if the the touring at that time one wasn't so so to say positive I remember I remember we went to Brussels.

We went out to Waterloo and we're going up the ramp right up the top of the lion and we were talking about. Then somebody shouted. Now that you're [skenny?]boy, behave yourself.

00:19:16

No.

00:19:25 David Mathias

Who is it?

00:19:26 Ivor Watkins

Right out the blue, something was there.

00:19:31 Ivor Watkins

1924 we're going, again in 1925 to the Parish exhibition.

00:19:33 David Mathias

But you went back quite soon after.

00:19:40 David Mathias

What is your profession at that time?

00:19:41 Ivor Watkins

 I was a carpenter and joiner, I served my appendance as a carpenter and joiner, you see. And I climbed the ladder and I became a. Then I became a site agent, chief instructor, building trades and the government Training Centre.

Then the training within industry scheme came in at that time you see to train fellows coming back on the war in various trades, giving them six months basic training and then they'll be put with a firm for so many years. So I was the chief instructor building trade in [Gorse?] Road, then the training within industry scheme came in. You see, they were pushing men off to the army.

With no managerial experience, so they couldn't couldn't replace them. If there's so, there was a scheme by the government where we could give people now basic training in PR, you know. Public Relations, communications, method study and safety.

00:20:48 Ivor Watkins

So a firm like that needed in a bit of trouble would come into our department in Cardiff, I’d go out then to have a chat with management and we'd arrange then. I'd go to this firm and  I'd take them out about 10 in the morning and 10:00 in the afternoon for a week on the basics of communication.

And then I go back then and give them basic training on how to handle problems, you know, Get the facts away and decide, take your back and check it out.

I got back to them after another couple of weeks and I take them on basic methods study, you know, where is it done?  why there? Who does it? Is it a better way? You’d go back then and do safety.

00:21:30 David Mathias

Was this in the 1920s?

00:21:32 Ivor Watkins

20 yes, no, no. This was back in the late late 40s. 50s

And I retired then in 1962, my last job was giving a talk to a Rotary Club in Caernarfon. Soon as I finished that talk and the lunch, I was off like a scalded cap to the station home and I never worked since. I could have gone back, but better than that because I know would have meant nine months, then.

00:22:01 David Mathias

Ohh. No, you you earned your retirement. And you obviously had a good retirement. You had a smashing retirement.

00:22:06 Ivor Watkins

The greatest experience I ever had was going up to the slater quarrying district and talking to those men [?]. Steep in workers' education.

I remember the first day I we held the courses in the boardroom and the [?] exchange in Blaenau Ffestiniog. And the manager was introducing

Introducing me to them and I could hear them ‘Pwy ye e?’, ‘Dyn o Gaerdydd’. If I’m to survive her you’re going to sell yourself here. I said ‘Annwyl gyfeillion, croeso’

And within a beat they accepted the otherwise they would have been a barrier ther between. 00:23:00 David Mathias

00:23:09 David Mathias

Yes, they are a bit like that in the north

 

00:23:12 Ivor Watkins

Yes, I wouldn’t say parochially minded but ‘local boy’. I always base my outlook over the years on Rudyard Kipling. “I have 6 honest serving men. They taught me all I know. Their names are what, where, when, how, why, who?” And if you pose a question starting with any one of those words, you will never get yes or no for answer.

The 6 of the greatest words in discussion needed, “I have 6 honest serving men. They taught me all I know. Their names are what, where, when, how, why, who?”

00:23:57 David Mathias

And you'll never get yes or no. Interesting

00:24:01 Ivor Watkins

Most exasperating thing is when you're leading a discussion is to have yes. No. Yes, no.

I never answered the question myself. I throw the  to the lions. OK, , what do you think about so and so? I'd open the discussion, see. They let you answer the question straight away. They won't go any further unless you do that. You do know? Let's see. But if you throw it out. So. So what do you think? Is that your idea? What do you ohh. No. Well, what did what?

That’s old Rudyard Kipling, you see

00:24:36 David Mathias

Must remember that.

00:24:51 David Mathias

There's there's very, very good pictures. Very good. Yes. Sorry. Yes, you're right.

00:24:54 Ivor Watkins

I'm very proud of that. Yeah. They, they, they, they, they forced me to go there. I would have liked to go with the Welsh fellas,  see. But of course I have to conform to the camera. But very proud of.

00:25:09 David Mathias

Welsh on that names on the monument are on the back

00:25:10 Ivor Watkins

 

Yeah, we went the other side of the road was a mike was there for the cameras in there, that sort of thing.

Yes, I had a very fun life. Very interesting life. But that's that's that is. That is the key. If you think of it. I'm sorry it happened. The key. “I have 6 honest serving men. They taught me all I know. Their names are what, where, when, how, why, who?”

They even introduced training within industry into the army.

We had one of our training officers and Major Phillips. He went there. I don't know what the section of the army went into, but he introduced it. There was a big firm like the ICI. I would go in. I'd run one course of each. But we would say  if you're interested, we could train a training officer for you so you can carry on. But with the smaller firms and they couldn't afford to have their own, I would do get composite groups then and so many from each industry.

00:26:21 David Mathias

Yes. And you’d cover South Wales did you?

00:26:30 Ivor Watkins

And North. Covering the whole of Wales, so I got to move all the time.

On the road I was on the road. No, I didn't bother the car. [?]. Yeah. So I use public transport, which was a great advantage. You see. So.

00:26:44 David Mathias

Where did you go by train?

00:26:52 David Mathias

So you have to take your time.

00:26:58 Ivor Watkins

I travel up to North Wales and on the Sunday.

Get to Llandudno Junction it’d be as black as a cows gut. Everything would be shut.

00:27:06 Ivor Watkins

I'd have to catch a bus then if I was in Caernarfon, then from Bangor to Caernarfon.
 

00:27:22 David Mathias

Well, that's that's a very interesting life.

00:27:24 David Mathias

 Yeah, it taught me this, that I've still got a lot more to learn.

About it now I think I've got some of the little cards I used to issue to the trainees.

00:27:43 Ivor Watkins

I can't find the safety one. There's your Job relations. Yes, that's the basis of the methods. That's the basic of communication.

00:28:26 David Mathias

That's very interesting, isn't it? At least still applied today.

00:28:36 Ivor Watkins

I introduced the training into the Llanwern Steel Works. One of the basic problems there was that they were coming in from various works.

Tools are called one thing, in one works, called another thing. So they have to make a glossary of your terms before they started.

So there's a basic knowledge of each job, each tool and each processes.

00:29:00 David Mathias

This is interesting.

00:29:02 Ivor Watkins

Straightforward, straightforward.

00:29:04 David Mathias

But you need to tell people this.

00:29:08 Ivor Watkins

And we didn't judge preach for when they had the practise, we had to bring in jobs and put it over.

00:29:18 Ivor Watkins

Or a funny thing I forgot to ask, anyway, if you'll give me give us your name and address. And if I find anything, I can post it on it.

00:29:28 David Mathias

That's very, very kind. Yes. Thank you. Are these for me?

00:29:34 Ivor Watkins

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:29:36 Ivor Watkins

Anything we can pass on.

00:29:43 Speaker 3

That, that, that it's. One thing to acquire knowledge and it’s another to impart it.

00:30:00 Ivor Watkins

Difficult fellows up and Wexham some new firm clinic called County Clothes.

Guards and that sort of thing, see

00:30:14 Ivor Watkins

The manager and the employee exchange here, I want you to come with me today to discuss training with this little fellow, he said to me, if you can get over him, he said you would be a clever [?]. Make this little fellow short. He immaculately dressed and he had this damn big pansy in his pocket.

“Empress strain” I said

Yes, he said. “This emperor strain, funnily enough. My wife picks one for me every morning to go in my pocket”. Contact, straight away, this exchange manager have been trying to tell him what? But you got to sell yourself.

00:30:51 David Mathias

That's a soft approach as well.

00:31:04 Ivor Watkins

You've got to judge your approach straight away. As I say, the acquisition of knowledge is a great thing, but the ability to impart it

 00:31:13 David Mathias

It. Yes, that's very interesting. Thank you. It's very. That's very interesting. Yeah.

00:31:19 David Mathias

It applies in my work, and often because you know.

00:31:23 Ivor Watkins

It applies everywhere. You'll see. Make the best use of this person's ability. It means to don't go over you as a person's ability. Don't flog the willing horse you see, otherwise that horse [?] some day

00:31:37 David Mathias

Did your experience in the in the First World War? I must have had a great effect on you afterwards. Do you still feel that effect?

00:31:49 Ivor Watkins

Ohh yeah. Yes. Yeah. One thing it taught me was discipline.

The other thing it taught me was that I've now become a man. But when we went over Pilckem Ridge, we were creeping up from from, from pushing right, right up the canal banks creeping up a little bit by night until we got the canal. Got up and over and we went through 18 LB of batteries. The batteries ended up with slow rise? One as the first time I've seen man shell shocked. Screeched like a stuck pig.
 

Who are we to say he was [?] you see. His nerves went, he shouldn't have been in the army

And I met that fellow years after in civilian life, by the name of Phillips, I could see you then he shouldn't have been in the army.

00:32:46 David Mathias

And then how do they treat him?

00:32:52 Ivor Watkins

Well, they sent him back see. They took a short view, obviously events, but it wasn't cowardice.

00:32:53 David Mathias

Was that the first push you were in?

00:33:04 Ivor Watkins

Yes.

00:33:05 David Mathias

So you came out, you joined the battalion when?

00:33:09 Ivor Watkins

I joined the battalion at the end of May 1917.

00:33:11 David Mathias

So you had a couple of months in the line

00:33:14 Ivor Watkins

Yes, no, no. One of those potching about, I don't know what the devil we were doing, you see? Don't have a lot of strategic training at all.

00:33:23 David Mathias

You were 38th Division then.

00:33:24 Ivor Watkins

38th Division and 15th Battalion, 114 Brigade 114 was Swansea Battalion. Carmarthen is the 15th, 1st and 2nd Rhonda’s on those 10th and 13th. Under 114 Brigade.

We had a round disc. We had greens. Swansea battalion had yellow. Rhonda’s, blue. And the 1st Rhondda’s had red.

00:33:48 David Mathias

Red just a disc on the arm.

00:33:50 Ivor Watkins

Yes.  Eventually, then we had the Red Dragon.

00:33:55 David Mathias

The 53rd had the feathers.

00:33:55 Ivor Watkins

Yes, but when we went to the second division, it was the just the battalion colors the green, red and white on your shoulder there. That’s all we had. And up and over we were up there for 5 days.

00:34:04 David Mathias

Pilckem Ridge

00:34:13 Ivor Watkins

We're going to make for this that the,  the purpose was you was to go Passchendaele. Then on the Channel Ports.

We've been up to Langemark with the aim [?] to get to [?] but we never got there, see. But the poor devils have got their offer to went on to Passchendaele were bombed down so couldn't move.

00:34:30 David Mathias

You didn't get that far.

00:34:33 Ivor Watkins

Five days we were there and they pulled us out.

00:34:36 Ivor Watkins

You're a patron.

00:34:38 Ivor Watkins

As I said, we came down to recuperate and that sort of thing then we have the Portuguese with us and before we left, boys could [?]

And those devils, they go up the line. Jerry had opened up a barrage. They drop everything back. We had to go up and fetch all the equipment after. That's where Jerry broke through.

The weak part of the line.

Pork and beans we used to call them.

00:35:14 David Mathias

Presumably that were you lost a lot of men in Pilckem

Officers as well.

How well do you remember?

00:35:29 Ivor Watkins

Well, you remember them when you can’t remember them. You know that it was so quick. There was so much on your mind. There was so much movement there. You had to keep your eyes open everywhere. We were in sell hole, not any basic trench trenches.

00:35:45 David Mathias

You weren't. You didn't have time to dig in.

00:35:47 Speaker 5

No.

00:35:48 Ivor Watkins

It's getting where you could get in shell hole.

00:35:52 Ivor Watkins

Which was the part it you were against?

00:35:54 Ivor Watkins

Ohh down in the hoop lines when we come back, when we come back we moved up, then the advance obviously was forced. So they saw it coming. The Australian tunnelling company were mining and digging traps.

But we poor sods had to be the buffer between them and Jerry  and then at night time see and we was sleeping during the day. We had old  mattresses in the cellars in the villages.

As I was saying, the gas guard got killed, he was shelling the party behind some drop shot and killed the gas guard. There were eight or nine of us that got it. It may have been others may have had it, but of course, there wasn't we went up top, to get the casualties out to the place. Quick.

Yes, yes, doctor, CS. And then as the to the second Canadian station.

Then in 3-4 days we were up in [?] in Yorkshire

“where are you from”, “Swansea.”

00:37:08 Ivor Watkins

And then I came out then in Mosely Park and on to Redcar. We had an old colonel there. Colonel Cook and he used to March us along the front. And he's sitting on his horse.

“You can't all have a horse, so I got it. And you couldn't all have the DS show, so they gave it to me. That's the truth.”

00:37:35 David Mathias

He was the CO of the 15th battalion?

00:37:37 Ivor Watkins

Yes. We were finished then. Not sure the 3rd Welsh or what, with re-grouping. After I had to rejoining after coming out of hospital and then from there we went out again to Ruon. From Ruon on to the 2nd Welsh

00:37:45 David Mathias

Oh, I see.

00:38:00 Ivor Watkins

Was he a regular soldier?

00:38:01 Ivor Watkins

Yeah. Must have been. A character

00:38:17 David Mathias

Presumably the officers were from all over the place?

00:38:19 Ivor Watkins

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:38:33 David Mathias

You joined the 15th Welsh. When they mainly Welsh men.

00:38:39 Ivor Watkins

Quite a few

I used to speak Welsh well as a kid. But it was [?] to speak Welsh around here then.

00:38:53 David Mathias

Yes same with me. My parents were Welsh speaking.

00:38:54 Ivor Watkins

Yes, very sad. You know, he comes back and I blurt it out you know.

00:39:07 David Mathias

Then what about the final, when you joined the 2nd. Did you garrison in Germany after that?

00:39:15 Ivor Watkins

That, yes, yes, I was up in Germany from the 23rd of December 1918 until about October 1919.

00:39:23 Ivor Watkins

Quite a long time.

00:39:24 Ivor Watkins

Time quite a long time. Then the second battalion came home. We were transferred to the we are in charge, were transferred, then to 6th Battalion. Which was a pioneer battalion to the First Division, you see. And of course, a lot of us duration of war men, they purposely lost our papers you see. So we come back. Then the Kimmel park. Dispersed

some went to [?], stand on the demobilization staff that I've finished my apprenticeship, and my brother was a builder. But he died during the war, finished my apprenticeship and that it.

Because in those days, to have a trade was the thing. I had 8 shillings a week when I joined the army. When I started my apprenticeship, I had 2 shillings a week, and buy your own tools.

My father, my father and I paid £40 to buy me down [?] condition. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I had a creative way about it and when they say about carpentry well, I said we always work on something that I believe.

It responded to you.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I I got quite, quite a few monuments around here. Old staircases or kind of carving and things like that. I got some my carving tools there. I have apal down in Ammanford a builder and contractor, he’s son and he’s in charge of all the workshops and they do all the purpose buils stuff for churches, the hard wood stuff. He gave me tips.

As soon as I went into that house I could see straight away, that's what they called continual handrail.

You just don't see anymore. He was on to me all the time.

These spiral staircases, how? What?. Let me put it this way whit simply

A roof of a house has a slope. You have a pipe coming up. Now that pipe is a circle, isn’t it? Suppose you cut it on the pitch of the roof, what would it becomes? An ellipse.

One diameter remains stable; the other one extends, you can get your look down and I't a circle.

00:43:10
I’ll find that book.

00:43:12 David Mathias

Well, I'd love to see it.

00:44:07 David Mathias

That's my address at the moment. Until next August. You see, that's my address. And then that's my father's address. You can always contact me through that address. That's right. You can always write my name care of.

00:44:22 David Mathias

But I bet you don't remember the number.

00:44:25 Ivor Watkins

6079

00:44:46 David Mathias

Thank you very very much.

00:44:50 Ivor Watkins

I I got a collection of of all the old the old ditties and poems on Ypres . You know.

‘Far far from Ypres I want to be, where German snipers can’t get at me.
Cold is my dug out, sore are my feet and waiting for [?] to send me to sleep”

I’ve got a score of them. You know, I collected them over the years. Yes, I got them, but I got them.

00:45:19 David Mathias

It would be lovely to see those.

00:45:26 Ivor Watkins

That's where I come in here, you know. And I  write my opinions

[end of side 1]

Tape 1 Side 2

00:46:04 Ivor Watkins

‘Can call me early. Call me early Sargeant dear, for I am very, very weary and [?]

[?] Blighty for a spell. All my troubles are behind and 7 days before me. Hope the sea won’t be stormy. The [?] going, Sergeant. Train at six. Just bare it in mind.’

00:46:31 David Mathias

Marvelous

00:46:33 Ivor Watkins

You know your memory is a wonderful thing, and they all come back. I got quite a lot here.

But it would take such a lot of time to read them.

00:46:45 Ivor Watkins

There's one on playing one day on the organs. You know,

‘Walking one day on the buck board, I was weary and ill at ease.
My hand grasped vaguely at nothing, and the muck came up to my knees.
The duck boat began oscillating. I knew I had to go.
So I gave one wild and final plunge below.’

[Ivor sings the ditty]

00:47:31 David Mathias

Yeah, it's fantastic and really is.

00:47:33 Ivor Watkins

The the the the nursery rhymes and

‘Jack and Jill's on top of the hill and have built an old pop station

But the frightful flinch, [?] to bits, with the great consternation

[Dickery dock ditty]
[Little Tom Buffett ditty]

‘Little Tom Buffett thought he would snuff it when hit in the chest with the shell.
The shell with dud ‘en. And so all of a sudden he rose and now doing well.’

Well, I remember them you know.  From bit's and pieces as they come.

‘The sausage was a fat one, the hand began to shoot.
He sniped his best when 9.2 and said acht dis is good.’

‘The airman saw they’d be game and and swooped down on hun.
Now fitz is where [?] go, but wasn’t got a gun’

00:48:32 David Mathias

That's marvellous stuff, it really is. When did you write all this?

00:48:35 Ivor Watkins

I had an illness for a while and I I was coming in here. We, we we we don't keep the house ornament. You see. I come in here. If you look there.

00:48:47 David Mathias

Would you mind if I have a quick look?

00:48:53 Ivor Watkins

I I used to recite with the with the constant party. You know the shooting of Dan Mcgrew and the the little Yellow Guard, the green eye and the little Yellow Guard. You know, the yellow light to the north and doom.

00:49:08 Ivor Watkins

‘There's a little marble cross below the town, a broken hearted woman tends to grave a mad carw and the little God forever looking down’

That sort of thing. Here they were parodied on that, you see. There all sorts of words.

00:49:23 David Mathias

This this is marvellous.

00:49:27 David Mathias

Now, was this 15th Battalion stuff or was it second battalion [?]?

00:49:30 Ivor Watkins

Well, I don't know where that got everything. You pick it up, you see, and you put some of your own words to it, and some of it may be in books, I don't know, but it's put some pieces that I've. The grammar may not be all that should be, but that's. I laugh like the devil.

The one good one, the the the Russian carrier from the Ypres.

00:50:01 David Mathias

That's fantastic. This is a good one on the quarter master. I would love a copy of this.

00:50:14 Ivor Watkins

So there's a funny thing about Reg Reg Fry when I met him, first of all, down the the Dragon [Mametz Wood?] never met a fella from the 15th before

00:50:25 David Mathias

Did you? Did you remember?

00:50:26 Ivor Watkins

Him. No, I don't. He came out after me, you see. And I was gone when he. Yeah. To the 2nd. And he started singing. He said, do you remember this Ivor?

‘Have you ever heard the music over the 114 brigade’

And I finished then

‘Have you ever heard the music of a [rifles] grenade.
Ever heard the music of a whizz..bang’
Bursting on the trenches of the blasted army man
Ever heard the music of a 9.2, puts Jack Johnson's in the shade.
But the finest music of the wide, wide world is the music of the 114 brigade.
[?] WHIZZ  BANG!

Another thing we used to say that we were marching. Remember when we marching up to Germany. Someone would start now.

‘This being my daughter's wedding day £10,000 I will give away.’

and everyone would shout ‘hurray, hurray’[?]

‘on second thought, I think it best to put him back in the old old chest.’

You know another couple of kilometres everybody would, really. Mustn't drink any water, something to start that, and you’d soon forget about everything.

It was daft, but clever.

00:52:43 David Mathias

I would love a copy of this I.

00:52:45 David Mathias

Would you mind?

What was there to that one? We had a king.

00:52:53 Ivor Watkins

Right.

00:52:54 David Mathias

King George [ditty] [?]

Take this gem, ‘Put an apple in one ear...[?]’ t

00:53:16 Ivor Watkins

Well, I had that from Trevor.

00:53:27 David Mathias

I love this. Yes, fantastic problems. Absolutely. Ohh.

00:53:36 David Mathias

I don't know. Worried about keeping you now.

00:53:43 David Mathias

You. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, we used to that sort of thing [company]. She married and Edward James. She called her every night to have a little chat.

Yeah, good company. That's very nice.

Yeah. In fact, people enjoy coming here, but that's it.

00:54:13 David Mathias

You're you're, but you're you're you're very young, very young.

00:54:14 Ivor Watkins

Yeah, I got. I enjoy speaking quite a lot.

You know to.

Women's institutes to men's club. You know any subject about the whole village and all that sort of thing. But I've cut a lot of it out now since getting a bit older.

00:54:28 Ivor Watkins

Now so, Sir, I get the better.

00:54:31 Ivor Watkins

But I I I'm not. I'm not a freemason, [?] If I had, I'd be far from my pals. But I do the freemason address every year for the [Welsh Glamorgan boys?]. They hold their their freemason stuff in our church.  We go to church, we not sacred, you see. But I like going to church, you see, Chapel or Sunday morning. But I do that for them every May. Well, you know, you meet people there. You're not.

I give the address the master reads the lesson the chaplain gives the [?]. Oh my God. So I'm in here scribing, you know, if I get advice, then you're scribbling, then that takes you times. Yes. Yes. I’ve written the History of our church from about 1600.

A bit of research on that issue was interesting. Landlord and the step. These are the landlord.

It it it keeps your brain active, you get the brain active halfway there, you see.. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:55:40 David Mathias

Yes, you're absolutely right. You're quite right. That's absolutely right, yeah.

00:55:46 Ivor Watkins

Yeah, but I'll get my daughter to [make photocopies]. But I would remember that, this being my daughter. Image, you know, on the march when you couple of kilometres. Fall out and look at your feet. Whale oil on your feet. We'd have whale oil for the trench, you see, in the water all the time. And some silly sod would shout out [a ditty]

It was part of the comradeship. It's what kept the British troops alive. What they did in the German army, got only knows.

That’s what kept us, otherwise we would have all gone bonkers.

00:57:05 Ivor Watkins

And singing, [?] grand old [?] concert party with the 13th Welsh [?] Sutton. Dress up in drag.

00:57:12 David Mathias

We must have a chat again, Ivor. Will leave you in peace now.

00:57:22 Ivor Watkins

Yeah. Lovely to have you. Lovely.

00:57:24 David Mathias

Well, it's very nice of you to entertain us. It's it's a great honour. Great pleasure.

00:57:29 Ivor Watkins

And remember that.
‘I have 6 honest serving men. They taught me all they. Thier names are what? Where? When? How? Why?

Get your facts. Weigh and decide. Take action but don’t forget to check results. Checking your results will depend on further actions.

And on the on the instruction.

There's so much babble, but you can break it down into steps. The procedures in and then in each step you'll find the key point.

Used to use the tying of the electricians' knot as an example, you see.

First you straighten the flex, then untwist six inches

[?]

Make sure you pull the other towards you. Make a left and then you have to tell a person how to do that in one one strain they lost. You shift the job like that, but if you break it down, the first thing you do to do that, that a certain thing, the second thing you do is just and then that second thing that is.

00:58:55 David Mathias

And you use that as an instructional aide

00:58:56 Ivor Watkins

 instruction made to breakdown sheet where we gave them a breakdown sheet as an exam.

Stage is the sequence of the job key part of the is the important little things in each step helps you to memorise that.

And always make sure you know that they know. There's too many things you tell them to do. He does it in front of you. You leave them. Like to make sure you know, you know.

00:59:34 David Mathias

Sleeping. Yes. So when you teach children, really.

00:59:38 Ivor Watkins

Yes, yes, yes. Yep, that's that's that's that's the thing with teaching today. With all due respect, the acquisition of Knowledge is one thing.

With the ability to impart it and to get it understood, this is another key. To do that you want to share yourself.

00:59:54 David Mathias

That's very true.

I’ll leave you in peace.