LITTLE BY LITTLE

The last of the bookmaking lone rangers tells his story, by Rolf Johnson

- Rolf Johnson

Can a bookmaker be a gentleman or, to put it another way, can a gentleman be a bookmaker? Either way the questions are redundant. Faceless corporates and the 'machine' betting exchanges hold sway. Those of us of an age can decide for ourselves whether the likes of William Hill, Cyril Stein (Ladbrokes), Joe Coral, Victor Chandler, John Banks et al were gentlemen. "Courtesy, civility and integrity" graced Hill's rails boards; "Never a quarrel bet with Coral": John Banks "Betting shops are a licence to print money" (Err, perhaps that last one isn't the best example).

You can judge whether Stephen Little was the last of his ilk (he gave up his pitches in 1998) with the help of entertaining, informative and trenchant opinions expressed in his memoir "From Bicycle to Bentley"*. Rare books and manuscripts are best handled with 'kid gloves'. My conceit is that From Bicycle to Bentley should be thumbed in soft white-gloves, such as worn by the tic-tacs of yesteryear signalling odds, in a flash, around the betting ring. Stephen Little belongs to that era.

He and I go back a long way. In the Sixties' as he was scrupulously ticking off the racecourses of Britain on his Raleigh Tourer 'sit up and beg' bike, I was taking the student's route, cadging lifts hitch-hiking. We didn't bump into one another until a decade later. I was a day tripper compared with Stephen's peregrinations though unknown to either of us we were among the masses at the last Manchester November Handicap in 1963; at Cheltenham the next year, overrun by the Irish for Arkle's first Cheltenham Gold Cup; and not long after, Team Spirit's Grand National. In 1970 we were both in the Doncaster crowd for Nijinsky's historic Triple Crown St Leger, a day which confirmed, mutually, that racing was our future.