Everyone's a winner on a day out at the races

A day at the races always meant the Marx Brothers to me. I know nothing about horses and gambling is just about the only one of life’s sins that fails to excite me.

Still last Saturday we had a day at the races – Newmarket to be exact.

It was a typical English summer’s day and the four of us had to abandon our picnic as the heavens opened, the rain lashed and the wind blew.

Five minutes later we were at the races, under warm sunshine, suited and booted as the occasion demanded.

Rather than be bothered with the tote - if you don’t know it’s no good asking me - we went down to bet on the first race with the bookies by the course.

For me and the present Mrs Lowe this was our first experience of such decadent behaviour.

Knowing nothing about horses, we just picked what we fancied.

The present Mrs Lowe chose ‘Suited and Booted’, which romped home at five to one.

So her first visit to a racecourse and her first bet and she backed the winner.

We retired to the bar to celebrate our success and pick our next horses. Mrs Lowe chose Joe Packet, which won at six to one.

Her first time and two straight wins on the first two races. Had it gone on I was ready to sell the story to the national newspapers, being the only way I was likely to make any money, but there the run ended.

Another of our group won the next two races though, so we all finished up on the day. Except I am unlikely to see any of the wife’s winnings. Horseracing as a day out was never high on our radar but it was great fun and very civilised.

Newmarket has re-invented itself and there are family days and music concerts following some of the race days and nights A funtime for all, even allowing for the English weather.

FROM the sublime to the ridiculous… Last week I was enjoying a pint with a couple of friends, when the pub was invaded by men in silly hats,with bells on their knees.

Yes, the Morris Men had come to town. Why they do it, nobody knows, unless it is an excuse to go to the pub and get slaughtered for a supposedly good cause.

They can tell their wives and mothers that they did not get drunk because they are louts but to maintain the age-old English traditions of folk music and rural socialism.

As Sir Thomas Beecham once said: ‘Try anything once except incest and folk dancing.’ And what is it all about? Some argue it is to do with fertility and peasant rebellion.

That’s what they always say, especially when the behaviour is either perverse or rude. Perverse it certainly is but I cannot see much rudeness going on in that get-up.

They all bring their own beer tankards, no doubt as they are afraid all non-Morris Men have the Black Plague.

When I first started drinking in pubs, some locals had their own glasses or tankards. It was a sign of belonging and being at one with the landlord.

I preferred to drink where the landlord did not know me that well. Apart from anything else, I had a better chance of being served that way.

Back to Morris Men and their rebelliousness. Imagine next year England is in the World Rugby Cup final against New Zealand.

England faces the ‘haka’, the Maori warrior dance, with stoicism, before donning straw hats and dancing a merry folk jig.

That’ll scare them – although the white handkerchiefs sometimes waved might be useful.

They are also supposed to be pagans – enough to give Christianity a good a name. The look on the face of one of my friends as he found he could not get to the bar because all this jingly-jangly hey nonny nonny was prancing before him, will live for a long time.

I do not mind tradition but this is not it – just a patronising, purified, euphemistic view of peasant, pre-industrial England.

If you want to go for a drink, go for a drink.