''It feels funny to be working on my own photo,'' he said from his desk in the photo colour correction department.
Mr Watkins retired yesterday after 50 years working on the ODT and its sister publication, The Evening Star.
The 67-year-old started at The Evening Star on January 13, 1963.
''I was a keen photographer, but there weren't any photography jobs going, so they offered me a photo-engraving job. I thought it would be a nice, clean job, but we were working with nitric acid, sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, cyanide and acetates. We used some terrible chemicals,'' he recalled.
''But it has been a great career. Newspapers are really interesting places to work. We were always the first to see the news.
''We'd try to get the Star Sports out at 7pm, so it would hit the movie theatres by 8pm. There was a little window ... and people would queue up there for the Star Sports ... You'd think: 'I'd better get cracking here, there's people lining up'.''
The biggest changes in the past 50 years had been in technology.
''When I started, I couldn't even type. It was quite frightening, really. If you didn't learn, you were out the door. Technology has changed everything, especially going from the blocks and getting rid of the zinc etching and changing to photo polymer plates; that was a big change.
''It's changed a lot. When I started, we did a lot of jobbing work for Cadbury, Tek Pak, Dunedin Print, Rogan Print and Green Island Print. We did all the Foodstuffs ads for the whole country and we'd do the blocks and photo litho plates for magazines,'' he said.
''The busiest years were probably when we were using film. Someone brought a pedometer in once and we were doing about 10km a night between the darkroom and the processing room.
''I'm going to miss the people. There are a lot of good staff here.
''But I'll be keeping busy. I've got two daughters and four grandsons - and my wife, Cecily, of course. I play golf and bowls and I'm a member of the Y walking group on Sundays. I also grow bonsais. I've got about 50 of them.''
Mr Watkins will be farewelled by his ODT colleagues with a function today.
