In most betting shops you will see three windows marked 'Bet Here', but only one window with the legend 'Pay Out'.

Although I have to admit I have despised a couple of people simply because they have never had a job in their lives.

One of the things that goes with getting older is that one becomes more conservative - and I emphasise that when I use the word conservative I do not mean politically.

In most betting shops you will see three windows marked 'Bet Here', but only one window with the legend 'Pay Out'.

I have stood in a bar in Lambourn and been offered, in the space of five minutes, a poached salmon, a leg of a horse, a free trip to Chantilly, marriage, a large unsolicited loan, ten tips for a ten-horse race, two second-hand cars, a fight, and the copyright to a dying jockey's life story.

Oh, to me not drinking is like being dead, almost. I sit here taking endless journeys down memory lane. It gets boring.

You never see a pretty, unattached girl on a racecourse. But you often see positive gangs of rather unpretty ones. They are the owners or the owners' wives and they wear mink in all weathers and far too much make-up. For some odd reason, I can never work out why they always seem to be married to haulage contractors in the North, builders in the South and farmers in the West.