Dave Plowman
…When the National and Boat Race were on the same day. Had my brother and young family staying with me (from Scotland) and they wanted to see the Boat Race live. I was working on “The Bill” at the time, and had just got a script called “Party Politics”. An omen. Not being a betting type, and before you could do everything online, I decided to find a betting shop between the station and Putney tow path. No such luck, so no bet. These days, you’d pass a betting shop every few yards on every high street.
Alan Taylor
My favourite betting story concerns a unit manager (Geoff Davies) who arrived on site at a dog racing track a little early. He decided to go to a nearby garage to get a snack and when he looked at the receipt, the date was 3rd March and the total came to £3.33. He took it as an omen and decided to put £3 on dog no 3 in the third race.
Somebody mentioned this bet to the betting pundit for Sky and it became a topic during the coverage of the doggies. When the third race was on, much interest was shown in dog no 3. To the amusement of all concerned, it came third.
Pat Heigham
Oh! I love that story! Straight out of Ronnie Barker?
I’m not a betting man, either, but living close to Epsom Downs, I did place a bet on the Derby one year – I was working on the B & W Minstrels in TVT, and there was a horse called “The Minstrel”, ridden by Piggott, so I ventured a fiver at rather short odds – 3:1. It won, so there was enough for a bottle of champagne!
Alan Taylor
When I used to work on two different iterations of LO21, doing remote cameras on racecourses was a regular fixture for the scanner and we had some riggers who were really into betting.
Many gamblers claim to have a system, or special insight, but for the most part it seems mythical. However one rigger did have a system which seemed to make sense to me and was working in reality over the period of a few months. His approach was to put a pound each way on every horse with odds of 25:1 or greater, so long as it was a National Hunt race with a field of no more than 12 horses. His logic being that the jumps made the race a bit unpredictable. Favourite horses might fall and the occasional outsider could fluke it. With those sort of odds, you don’t need to win too often to keep ahead of the game.
Bernie Newnham
When I joined Crew 16, in about 1970, there was a weekly pools entry, with each member giving some share of the cost. Of course, we never won, so someone – it may have been Ian Perry – suggested we do the horses instead. So we all put in one week’s pools money. This was much more fun, and caused much discussion in the tea bar over coffee on each crew day. It would be someone’s job to go down to the betting shop on the Green and make our bets. When I left the crew, probably to do a Pres stint, there was still money in the kitty, and tea bar enthusiasm.
Geoff Hawkes
Many years ago I happened to be working in Pres B one afternoon on horse racing when one of the production people in the studio was running a book. One of the fixtures was a four horse race and one horse had odds of 100-1. Miraculously that horse won. I’m not a gambling man as I lost too much of my pocket money in slot machines in arcades at the seaside when I was young and resolved never to bet again, a decision I’ve only gone back on a handful of times since, mainly when there’s been a sweepstake among colleagues in the studio on the National or something like that.
I’ve often wished though that I’d place a tenner or even a fiver on that horse, if nothing else but to get one over on the bookie as it’s usually them that make the money, sometimes from people who can’t afford it. I overheard one such man complaining bitterly to the man in a booking office on a rare occasion when I was working at Ascot, that the horse he had been told was “a dead cert” hadn’t even been placed and he’d lost his money. More fool him of course, but I can’t help feeling sorry for such people as addictions of any sort are hard to quit. I detest the amount of ads for gambling there are on television, luring people in by offers of free stake money or offering tuppenny stakes to get them started,
Dave Mundy
For many years I worked on ‘windy corner’ at Ascot as did most of the OB sound ops. looking after Julian Wilson’s in-vision set-up. It was on the route to the owners’ and trainers’ bar. There was always a Stan Laurel shaped gentleman with a bowler hat looking after the access to the bar. He claimed to have the ‘ear’ of every trainer about how their horse would perform in the next race. Hot tips ensued and I never won a penny! I think my wife with a pin was a better tipper!
Bernie Newnham
In a different area of betting –
Some time back I had shares in a company that split itself, hiving off its evil coal mining arm. My share of the coal was worth £2.80. If I’d decided that coal mining was for me the current gain is 2597.86%. I could have been rich, rich, rich!
As it is I now have £72.74. Still not worth the fees for dumping it.
Pat Heigham
While working on “Fiddler on the Roof” Location for 5 months in Yugoslavia (then), I organised the following:
There was a sweep running for goals scored by English footie teams, everyone drew a team, and deposited 10 dinar a week (about £1), the winner at the end being the highest scoring team. I would record the Saturday evening results off BBC World Service from my travelling radio onto a Nagra and play them back in the bar that same night! (I believe the Production Manager copped the jackpot!)
Tony Grant
I was working on the “Young Musician of the Year” for two weeks out of an Acton scanner in Oxford Road Manchester, just down the road from the studios. I think it was the middle weekend that the Grand National was being run, and someone (possibly the riggers!) organised a sweepstake, and the horses were allocated at random to all who took part. I WON! But then had to buy drinks for all participants. I’ve never lost so much money by winning before!
John Vincent
Doing “The Generation Game” with Bruce [Forsyth], he did an identical Warm Up each week. Part of it was to find an old lady with a funny name (Gladys, Winnie, Ada, Iris (anyone else and we can have a funeral)).
We did a sweepstake. £1 in and you’d draw a name from all the likely names. Winner would get about 50 quid.
All went well and Bruce even started to include it. That was a result in itself.
Then we noticed scriptwriters Wally and Gary seemed to win more than most. Apparently they would accost the audience as they came in to plant a willing old dear who would claim she was called the name they had drawn!
That was the end of that.
Geoff Hawkes
Not only was Bruce’s warm up routine the same from week to week but it was more or less [the same] from series to series as I discovered when he was brought back after Larry Grayson and Isla St Clair did it.
I could almost parrot it as he went along but due to his professionalism it sounded fresh every time. I remember how he liked to find a lady with an old fashioned name, an Elsie or a Majorie and would bounce back and forth to her with an “alright Elsie?” during his routine, or pretend he had to explain a joke to her because she hadn’t caught on. They knew it was in fun and loved it.
Was the Wally, Wally Mardell? If so I remember him doing the warm up on “Going For Gold” at Elstree and his joke about having run over a cat on the way there and knocking at a door nearby to enquire if it was theirs. I’m sure some of you will have heard it but it’s a visual gag involving face pulling and doesn’t tell well in print.
As John says, they were happy days.
