Low life
Lurching
Jeffrey Bernard
The drama began at once. Jim Bracey.' a farmer, millionaire, collector of traction engines, an ex-landlord of mine who stands about 6ft 6ins, has sideboards and 1001(5 like something out of a Hollywood Wester'.,, — marched into the jam-packed Red 1-0.11 at about 9 p.m. carrying a dead sheep on hils shoulder and a 12-bore shotgun in his hail' He threw the mauled and bleeding sheeP, onto the middle of the floor and addressed the drunken and dangerous assembly thus: `It's not your dogs I'm after, it's you. I'll kill the first fucker who steps on my land or who has a dog off the leash on it.' Not a ensY pub as you can see and I only drink in It at breakfast time or round about 3 a.m. have I'm in Lambourn. It's unnerving to 've a loaded shotgun pointed at you at the °est of times but in the sanctuary and sane- city of a pub it calls for another round. That little cameo over, it seems that most of the Welshmen went out into the village square and proceeded to punch shit out of each other until the early hours. All I can say is that they must be extremely fit. Street fights in illY pretty disastrous experience last on average about 30 seconds.
'Well, what other gossip is there?' I ask- ed Noel behind the bar the next morning. 'Nothing really. Oh yes,' he said, wiping a glass, 'the Lambourn Carnival Queen tried t° Commit suicide last week. Have another.' Then we were joined by Flo who nursed me for ten days some years ago when I was a teniPorary resident there and being besieged delights attacked by pink elephants. She uelights me always with her reminiscences Of the country in bygone days and she Shakes her head sadly and says, 'The bees don't even buzz like they used to.' God bless Flo and bring damnation to Welsh Yobs who tear the telephones off the walls °f the pub. It was also, oddly enough, in a pub that I was later told a gem of a Lester Piggot story (whether non-racing people will understand lit is another matter) and the maestro is one bee who certainly buzzes like he used to. It was during the race for the Oaks. Willy .,'Newnes was just entering the straight on Tine Charter when he thought he ought to give the horse a reminder so he gave it a crack. As he did so Lester loomed up alongside and said, 'Sit down. Leave her alone,, Willie took the advice but a furlong further got a little worried and started niggl- ing at the horse again. Again Lester, still ?sides, called across and said, 'I told you. ...It down. Keep still.' Then, coming to the heal stretch, Lester called, `Go on. You can go home now. That's it, piss off.' That the tnao can judge how every other horse in a ;ace is going, never mind his own, is just an ;torn of his skill. There'll never be another 'Ike him. But good of Newnes to admit he ?night have lost a Classic.
As for the actual Lurcher Show itself, I didtake a peek at a few races but it would 1.1,ave been a dreadful waste of the occasion It I hadn't spent most of the day having a chat and a gargle with the likes of such He's as Fred Winter. He doesn't change. ,7 e's simply a good and great man. Neither does my friend Julian Lewis change. At '30 he retired hurt to take the early bath after having been attacked by small children no covered him from head to foot in beetroot and mayonnaise salad. So much more civilised and gentle than fighting in the village square with gipsies. Next year there'll be more dogs, I'm told. Let's hope big Jim Bracey doesn't have to pull the trigger.
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