Sunday April 10th 2022

Good job you obeyed! The same happened with my more knowledgeable wife, too. Not a fiver, though, £1 ew which cost only £1 on Bet365 as they were paying half the stake back instantly. No Cornsay syndrome, though. This reminds me of a long tale, indeed, but I shall recount it nonetheless. Apologies to anyone I have told before.

I had an eccentric maiden aunt Pearl who lived in a top floor flat and regularly used various unorthodox and irrational methods which usually involved her cat pulling out numbers from under her carpet, to find winners both on the football pools and horseracing. The belief that one day she would hit the jackpot was imbued in her by gambling traditions in her family, notable her unlce Fred, who had a lifetime of failure with his bets and eventually met his demise when he was knocked over by a horse and cart on his way back from a pub.

She also visited the Manchester dog track with a somewhat improbable, impecunious bachelor, a second hand antiques dealer. My mum used to visit his shop and it amazed me (as a child) when she bought something to see that he had five pound notes in his wallet. I don't think I had ever seen one as my parents did not have them. Pearl on the other hand was always broke at the end of the month. In 1963, Pearl was asked by a fellow resident, Mrs Holden from the first floor flat, (where Pearl had the top flat) to put £1 ew on Ayala in the National. In the event, this won at 66-1. It was a lot of money in those days.

Pearl also had an eccentric sense of humour. She collected the money from the bookie (I expect there were few female punters in those days not long after it was legalised in 1961). Pearl's behaviour outraged my father, as she also used to go to the pub on her own, which he thoght was totally out of order. When Mrs Holden (there was no Mr Holden as far as I know) climbed up the steep stairs up to get her winnings, Pearl greeted her with a long face and said she was terribly, terribly sorry but she'd totally forgotten to put the money on. She returned her two one pound notes. You can imagine the sense of expectation which Mrs Holden had and the dashed hopes, the profound disappointment. As Mrs Holden then returned disconsolately down the steep stairs to her flat, Pearl followed her on to her upstairs landing, called her name and as Mrs Holden turned round she threw the shower of ten bob and pound notes down the stairs like confetti, laughing wildly. She then helped her to collect them. Mrs Holden would not have been taken by surprise by this, but she would certainly not have been expecting it.

Such a sum of money was way beyond my comprehension in 1963. It was probably five times what my aunt earned in a week as a primary school teacher (in the toughest part of Manchester). For me, the tale just added to the legend of the Grand National in my imagination.

@QuaiDB Lovely story. My grandfather who got me into gambling was a police sergeant who every year used to tell me that one of the gates onto Aintree was his responsibility. Anyway, each Saturday the butcher would call to give him some bets that he would put on for him, written on scraps of paper in those days. The odd thing was that the butcher would have to pass the bookies shop on his way. I suppose being a businessman meant his customers wouldn't like seeing him in there.

P.S. I thought I had edited out my penultimate paragraph altogether..but I didn't. As someone else has mentioned part of it, I shall leave it in.

I saw the article you mention, the headline alone was enough.................... could not bring myself to read it!! Dentist (il mio culo), he employs something like 3,000 people!!

Was going to comment earlier on that stat you enlightened us with. Instead I just stuck a few quid on so well done and thanks!

@GForce it's a great record and drifted to a nice price too!

Looking forward to seeing this fella. 16/1 for the Derby with Skybet & Betfair. Might be a fair bit shorter come 16.48 this afternoon.

Thought you might have gone for longer odds of High Definition. Lissen was saying he has really developed physically and expects him to be a force this season.