WHEN a musical telling the inspiring story of Alfred Williams hits the stage in Swindon this week, one lady in the audience will have a special claim to fame.

Betty Reynolds, a widow who now lives at Highworth, met the South Marston writer when she was growing up in the village as Betty Crouch.

The 90-year-old can even vividly recall the day the man, known nationally as the Hammerman Poet, died in 1930.

The Hammerman, a musical about Alfred’s life, was premiered at Steam in November 2010 and is now being re-staged by its composer, John Cullimore, who lives at Wanborough and is a consultant surgeon at the Great Western Hospital.

The show is being performed from tomorow until Saturday at the Phoenix Theatre, New College, and Betty is to be guest of honour at one of the shows.

“Mr Williams – as we called him – was very friendly when you got to know him, although he could seem standoffish at first,” she said.

“Both he and Mary (his wife) were very softly spoken, quie t and a little bit shy.

“Even as a child I realised they were what we used to call ‘mouse poor’. It was awful. They had nothing.

“My parents were very friendly and sociable people, so although Mr Williams could seem a bit standoffish to other people, my parents weren’t put off, and they got to know each other.”

Betty said he was a very proud man who was especially fond of children.

“I know they would have liked to have had children of their own,” said Betty.

“He never grumbled about us playing outside his house, even though some of the boys liked to play tricks on him.

“I never knew he was famous until after he died, and even mother and father didn’t seem to know much about it.

“He had been away and said he had to come home to Mary, or maybe he would have stayed there.

“He wouldn’t talk about any of it because he didn’t want people to think that he was showing off.”

John Cullimore, chairman of the Alfred Williams Heritage Society, said as far as they were aware, Betty is the last person still alive who actually met the writer.

“She knew him when she was a small child growing up in South Marston, and has some wonderful and very vivid memories,” he said.

“Alfred was a complex character and you form an impression of what you think he was like from his books and what other people have written about him.

“But when you chat with Betty you find out so much about what he was really like.

“Some of the things she recalls are pretty sad because he and his wife Mary were virtually starving before they both died in their early 50s.

“But it’s also nice to have Betty’s first-hand account of the sort of person Alfred was. He does sometimes give the impression of being dour and aloof, but Betty remembers Alfred and Mary as shy but friendly people when you got to know them, and an extremely devoted couple.”

Tickets for the show can be booked online through www.alfredwilliams.org.uk/tickets or by calling 07814 254269.

For more information about Alfred’s life and works, log on to www.alfredwilliams.org.uk