John Bull's First Job
The Unprofessional Punter
By SIMON RAVEN,
An understanding friend lent me the use of his spare bed and the domestic and culinary ser- vices of his resident mistress. Bread and butter I earned by writing reviews for the Listener and Time & Tide. There remained the problem of jam and indeed of caviar, for an early habit of novel-reading had long since inclined me to ex- pensive tastes; and it was in the gratification of these that my 'wits' were chiefly to be exercised.
After some thought, I devised a scheme analo- gous to that popular among richer friends, who used to buy stocks and shares in the hope that they would go up. My problem. of course, was more complicated than theirs, in that I had no capital and required far quicker returns on it. But what I did have, incredible as it seems to me now, was credit : not, indeed, the sort of credit I could use to play the market, for my bank account was the sickest of jokes, but that sort of theoretical, gentlemanly credit which enables one to play the horses. For although a bookmaker, like anyone else, normally requires a banker's or other solid reference before taking on a credit client, he will waive this rule if one belongs to a respectable club in which he or his agent operates. In such a case, membership of the club is deemed, by a process of thought which eludes me, to be an adequate guarantee; and to just such a club, which stood four-square between Piccadilly and The Mall, I happened to belong.
In this club was a racing room, which con- tained a tape-machine prodigal of up-to-the- second information, a board on which to post the information, and a cartoon of Edward VII beam- ing at Minoru; also, six afternoons out of seven, two representatives of famous turf accountants and several other gentlemen with expensive faces. Applying to this room one afternoon, I was warmly welcomed by both representatives and entered on their books. As a member in good standing I could have not only credit but, it seemed, unlimited credit; it was just as simple as that. Or not quite as simple as that, because, Mr. Raven, accounts are rendered weekly and un- limited credit means unlimited inside the week. We could hardly carry on (ha, ha) if our clients just went on betting and betting until they won. No (ha, ha), 1 do see your point, and I will have a pound each way on Simple Simon, who is run- ning, I see, in the two-thirty at Hurst. Simple Simon? An outsider, I think. Yes indeed, but a charming name, and if he should by some miracle oblige, I shall win something worth having.
And so I became an Unprofessional punter, and inside a few days I had established my new routine. Since I worked by inspiration (I could never be bothered with all that boring rubbish about weights and handicaps), I needed plenty to drink, and I would therefore arrive at the club at noon each day for an hour of horse's necks (brandy and ginger ale) before lunch. After lunch with half a bottle of burgundy, the business of the day began. Having eschewed the lift and panted upstairs to the racing room on the third floor (one must, after all, get some exercise after lunch), I would order my first large vintage port and study the runners for the first race. With any luck there would be two or more meetings, and
Tm leaving von, Ethel.'
I would have a bash at every race in all of them. For each race I would select two horses, the one with the nicest name at odds of between 4-1 and 7-1, and ditto at odds of between 100—S and 33-1. On the former, which presumably stood some chance of winning, I would stake up to £5; on the latter never more than £2, usually request- ing 'tote prices' if the odds were more than 20-1, as the one piece of professional knowledge 1 cherished was that 'outsiders pay more on the tote.'
After the first race came the second large vint- age port, and so the idyllic afternoon would pass. If the pursuit was congenial, so was the com- pany: the regulars included a retired Indian Civil Servant, who had some dotty theory that form was transmitted only through the dam; an Air Marshal who looked like an upright barrage bal- loon with the thick end at the bottom; a retired colonial judge, who was a fanatical atheist and used to write very pretty Latin elegiacs in the manner of Martial about the BVM; a cartoonist; and sometimes an intellectual-looking doctor who was subsequently struck off, though whether for abortion or indecent assault of a patient I now forget. Whoever had a decent win (and most races somebody did) was expected to bily the next round of large vintage ports, an agreement from which only the Indian Civil Servant was ex- cluded, on the plea that his complicated assess- ments of form as passed down through the female line required him to keep a clear head. (Since he won more seldom than anybody, he was not much missed.) This system had the admirable effect of leaving me, by the last race, just sober enough to know what I had won and too drunk to care what I had lost.
But here, of course, was the rub. What was I to do if at the end of the, week I was down and couldn't settle? Quite apart from all the caviar which I wouldn't be having, such a disaster would mean the end of what was rapidly becom- ing a way of life. And so we come to the least edifying bit of this not very edifying story. Bluntly, whenever I ended the week down I bor- rowed the money to pay up, thus refreshing my credit for another week; if; on the other hand, the week showed a profit, I would return to my backers just enough of what I had borrowed to soften them up against my next request. It would, of course, have been far more logical simply to live, on borrowed money and cut out the horses. This, however, would have been merely contemptible, whereas the course I did adopt was contemptible but fun. Besides, the big coup was always waiting round the corner; one never knew. . . .
And little by little it did at least grow easier to survive without borrowing. Having achieved a good name for prompt settlement with two major bookmakers, I was easily able to take up accounts with others. By the time 1 had ten accounts (I wound up with fifteen) it did not much matter if one went unpaid for a few days while I tried to make up the money on another which was still 'clear'; so that by means of much telephoning of bets and juggling of cheques. I was able to work out a tolerable if hectic modus vivendi and keep myself more or less afloat. All this was very different from those first blithe afternoons spent over the large vintage ports; but it was slightly better for the health, it de- veloped in me a certain aptitude for ad hoc cal- culations which was useful when I was running roulette banks in the Army later on, and it taught me a very significant social lesson: that if there is one class of Englishman left who still holds absolutely to his spoken word, it is the Joy ish bookmaker.
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