[1] He was a close friend of fellow poet Dylan Thomas, who described him as "the most profound and greatly accomplished Welshman writing poems in English".

[1] His birth coincided with slight earth tremors; another baby born that night was christened John Earthquake Jones.

His parents were William Watkins, a manager for Lloyds Bank in Wind Street, Swansea, and Sarah ("Sally"), daughter of James Phillips and Esther Thomas of Sarnau, Meidrim.

A story is told that one evening in Chelsea, during the war time blackout, they were walking along and Vernon tripped over something and fell to the ground.

Others among this Swansea Group were the composer Daniel Jenkyn Jones, writer Charles Fisher and the artists Alfred Janes and Mervyn Levy.

The 1983 book Portrait of a Friend by Watkins' wife Gwen (née Davies) deals with the relationship between the two poets, and in 2013 Parthian Books published Vernon Watkins on Dylan Thomas and Other Poets & Poetry, a collection of previously-unpublished critical work with a foreword by Rowan Williams.

[7] Watkins met Gwen, who came from Harborne, Birmingham, at Bletchley Park, where he worked during the Second World War as a cryptographer, and she, as a member of the WAAF.

[citation needed] Of the book, the publisher said: "Mr Vernon Watkins is a Welsh poet whose work hitherto has appeared only in periodicals and in recent anthologies.

As well as Yeats Vernon was familiar with T. S. Eliot and Philip Larkin whose affectionate recollection of him can be found in his Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955-1982 (2012).

Watkins had developed a serious heart condition, which he made light of, insisting on playing his beloved tennis and squash with his usual vigour.

A group portrait of the Kardomah Boys by Jeff Phillips was unveiled at Tapestri Arts Centre in Swansea in June 2011.

Featured in the painting are Vernon Watkins, John Pritchard, Dylan Thomas, Daniel Jones and Alfred Janes.

In March 2012, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, presented a portrait of Watkins in the BBC Radio 3 programme Swansea's Other Poet.

[16] In October 2014 Swansea Council unveiled a blue plaque for Watkins outside the building on the corner of St Helen's Road and Beach Street in the city, where he spent 38 years working for Lloyds Bank.