My 'Nan

In my last column, I was telling you about how July 7, 2005, changed my life. I had just walked up to the microphone for my first-ever after-dinner speech …

What I was going to say, I had absolutely no idea. I paused for a while, and then said, "Hands up, who knows me?" All the dealers in the room put up their hands. And then I said, "Hands up, who doesn't?" The rest of the room raised their hands. "Hands up, who couldn't give a toss if you ever see me again?" From that second in time, I knew I had the audience; I had them, and you could have heard a pin drop. So, I told them the story of my grandma. When I was 10, my grandma came to my junior school because the dinners at my school were real bad. For instance, on Monday we had broken leg of lamb, and on Tuesday, there was bruised steak and kidney pie. Wednesday was dislocated oxtail soup, Thursday was cracked spareribs, and then on Friday, there was always a bonus when we used to have battered fish and chips. It was a real bad school in a bad neighborhood.

So, I started to go to my grandma's for dinner. But if Dunstill races were on, my 'Nan and I would sneak into the racetrack, over a canal lock and under a metal fence, and would get in for nothing. I remember one day in June, it was a scorching-hot summer's day, four weeks before the end of term, when we had sneaked into Dunstill racetrack. My grandma was 80 years old, shortsighted, and hard of hearing, so she used to have me read out the horses to her. That day, I read out "Pink Lady …"

"No," she said.

And then, "Sun Drew …"

She replied, "No."

"Hard Ransom."

"That's the one," she said. "My grandson, it's an omen. It's like someone is telling me to bet that horse."

"Gran," I said, "the horse is called Hard Ransom!"

"That's got to be the one," she said. So, off I went to the hardest bookmaker who ever walked on a track, Mr. D.B. Brooks.

I explained to him that the 2 and 6 each way was my Gran's bet, and I pointed to her sitting on a bench. He came over and gave her the receipt. The stalls opened, and out flew Hard Ransom. He led from start to finish and won at 33-1. We received £15 15s in 1967. We were the kings of all creation that day. We sat on the racetrack drinking Bohemian-style beer and eating vanilla ice cream, courtesy of the hardest bookmaker who had ever walked on a track, Mr. D.B. Brooks.

As the years progressed, my 'Nan and I had a formula on the horses. We used to bet beaten favorites that come out and run within five days. The hit rate was phenomenal. One day in 1971, I stood outside the betting shop at Three Turns Parade with my Ladbrokes ticket. My stake was 60 pence. I had asked Leonard Hounslow, my friend's father, to go and put the bet on for me, and he had given me the receipt. All five horses won, and the ticket was worth £980, from 60p. In those days, you could buy a brand-new Mini Cooper S with all the trimmings, on the road with insurance for only £800. But I wasn't old enough to buy a car; I was only 14. And there was no way I was sending anybody into that betting shop except my grandma.

I wheeled her three miles in her wheelchair from South Street to Three Turns Parade. I got her to the front door of the betting shop with her walking sticks and said to her, "You have to make it to the counter and back and those nine hundred eighty pounds is ours." I remember that the first man on the moon said they were small steps for man but giant steps for mankind. This is what I went through with my 'Nan. She made it there and back, and I was generous enough to get us a taxi home with Mr. Holmes, who was a daytime taxi driver, and at night ran the local off license where I used to fetch my grandma's milk stout.

As the years passed, I left school. I was old enough to go into the betting shops myself. One day a friend of mine came into the shop and said, "Martyn, you have to go home. Something's happened."

I remember walking into the house and everything was quiet, and I knew instantly that something terrible had happened. My father said to me, "Your grandma has died." It was the saddest day of my life. The day of the funeral, the hearse went down South Street and turned onto Jones Road. It then turned onto the Stafford Road, which was leading to the crematorium, and as we rounded the corner, a man took his cap off and bowed his head. I glanced up to see. It was Mr. D.B. Brooks, the hardest bookmaker who had ever walked onto a racetrack. He'd never forgotten me or my grandma. I'd love to see her one more time, just so I could tell her about Mr. D.B. Brooks.