Putting a Bet On

Every day except Sunday, Dad would walk from Preston Road to the factory where he worked, now he was out of the Royal Engineers and back at work, in Warstone Lane in Hockley. On Friday nights and weekends he would drink at the Red House with his brothers, and whenever he had the money, he would bet on the horses.Each working day Mom would give him half a crown for his dinner, but most times he would spend it having a bet on a horse instead. He did his gambling with an illegal bookie whose betting shop was up an entry at the bottom of a road close to the factory where he worked.

A furtive looking man, called Frank, a bookie’s runner, wearing a checked cap and a dirty white silk scarf around his neck, stood at the bottom of the entry. He was constantly watching for the police, his head darting backwards and forwards like a ferret. As an illegal punter, Dad would wrap his money for the bet in a piece of paper and sign with his non de-plume. His signature was always ‘Bonnie’; no one knew why, but Auntie Chris said it was an old girlfriend’s name from when he was a young man. Somehow, this gossip had never filtered through to Mom, who would have killed him, because he called my little sister ‘Bonnie’ too, even though her name was Roberta.

A typical 'entry', where the bookie's runner
would furtively wait for punters.

When a punter arrived at the betting shop, off would come the runner’s cap for the bet to be dropped into, then it was immediately slapped back onto his balding head. The attempts at secrecy were quite futile, as was the lookout for the police. All the bookies had an arrangement with the local police, where each gambling establishment was regularly raided on cue. There was an appearance in the local Magistrate’s Court and a predetermined fine was imposed. It worked very well; everybody was satisfied and there was no time wasted. Dad always had accumulator bets; he called them ‘if coming bets.’ He would bet sixpence on a horse, and if it won at 2 to 1, the shilling plus the sixpence went on the next horse, and so on. He rarely won. I would place bets for my Dad regularly. It made me feel quite grown up and daring going up the entry with his half crown rolled up in a piece of paper and putting it in the cap of the ferret-like little man with the grubby white silk scarf. I was always half expecting to feel a policeman’s hand on my shoulder and a voice saying ‘ello, ‘ello, what’s all this ‘ere then son?’ And me answering, ’It’s a fair cop, ossifer’, and being dragged off to the slammer, which I could later brag about to everybody.