Private Life
He was a devout Christian and an enthusiastic supporter of the Church of Christ in Dundee (where he met his wife). On his desk he had a huge Bible on a stand in which he made copious notes in the wide margins. He used to deliver Christian chats to children which he illustrated with quick drawings on a blackboard. He contributed artwork for mission calendars, and from 1956 he produced (free of charge) the comic strips William the Warrior and Tony & Tina - The Twins for The Young Warrior, a children's paper published by the WEC Publications. These strips, filled with quotations from Scripture, were collected into a series of booklets. Watkins also illustrated some Biblical features for Thomson annuals in the 1960s. It was his ambition to adapt the Bible into illustrated format, but that dream was never realised. In March 2008 a watercolour by Watkins depicting The Crucifixion was discovered in a house in Lochgelly, Fife.
Watkins and his wife built a substantial house in Broughty Ferry, which he named Winsterly. He continued working with D. C. Thomson for the rest of his life. On 20 August 1969 he was found dead at his drawing board, victim of a heart attack.
It is a testament to Watkins' work that D. C. Thomson continued to reprint Oor Wullie and Broons strips in The Sunday Post for seven years before a replacement was found. Watkins' Desperate Dan strips were reprinted in The Dandy for fourteen years.
In a 2006 BBC documentary marking 70 years of Oor Wullie, it was claimed that, due to his frequent mocking of Axis leaders in his comics before and during World War II, Watkins' name was on a list of enemies of the Third Reich.
Read more about this topic: Dudley D. Watkins
Famous quotes related to private life:
“As in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must still more distinguish the language and the imaginary aspirations of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The private life of one man shall be a more illustrious monarchy,—more formidable to its enemy, more sweet and serene in its influence to its friend, than any kingdom in history. For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth the particular natures of all men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The others ‘acted’ a role; I was the role. She who was Mary Garden died that it might live. That was my genius ... and my sacrifice. It drained off so much of me that by comparison my private life was empty. I could not give myself completely twice.”
—Mary Garden (1874–1967)