Who remembers the Bookies runner

[USUK]

I think they operated on the factory floor and then they took the bets to the bookie, the runner getting commission.

 

I remember the Bookies Runner at Moore & Wrights :-)

[poppins]

My Dad was a Bookie, my sisters and I were his runners, back and forth on our bikes from Southey up to the Magnet ,of course he had men working for him, they got caught now and then, my Dad take the bets and put the money & bets bag in a privet hedge we would just ride by, grab the bag and head on home ready for the counting.

[Barry Smith]

My dad was a bookies runner,he would collect from houses and his work place (William Greens ecclesfield) I would follow 100 yds behind him carrying the bets,so if he got stopped

he didnt have anything on him

[sharrovian]

I started work in 1952 and after a couple of years started having a bet, 1/- each way (5p) on the horses, lots of the men had bets regularly and they were all taken by a labourer who went home for his dinner, no one ever knew who the bookie was but he always paid-up.

[poppins]

My dad was a bookies runner,he would collect from houses and his work place (William Greens ecclesfield) I would follow 100 yds behind him carrying the bets,so if he got stopped

he didnt have anything on him

 

 

Come to think of it my Dad never paid us a penny for doing his dirty work

[Mark101]

Hi Everyone and apologises for interupting your forum.

 

My name is Mark Ferguson and I am a researcher working on a new series looking at life in the 1950s, due to be broadcasted on BBC1 throughout the UK in March 2012. The programme is a celebratory hark back to the time using first hand interviews and our rich BBC archive.

 

One of the themes we are looking at is Leisure and we want to cover Betting and the Bookies, in particular the Street Bookies. I'd love to talk to anyone who was a street bookie or a runner.

 

We really want to hear about their memories, and really how life was back in the 50s.

 

I am also trying to find some people who raced pigeons or dogs in the 50s too to share their story.

 

If you think you could help, please do get in touch, send me a message or an email to mark.ferguson@bbc.co.uk

 

Look forward to hearing from you.

 

Mark Ferguson

BBC Northern Ireland

[PopT]

I remember the bookies in the steelworks taking bets, I often wondered how they held a job down spending so much time with the racing bets.

 

Often when their bets became a liability they would have to leave the works to make phone calls to lay bets off to other bookies.

 

Happy Days! PopT

[gnvqsos]

I remember my grandad ran for a bookies.As a shift foreman he was ideally placed to circulate and collect the monies.His brother in law opened the first turf office in our area.

[Cookingfat]

yer my dad was one at the bottom of haywood road at pitsmoor he would stand on the corner taking bets from punters in the pub across the road it got him a few pints doing it god bless him

[TORONTONY]

Just found this particular thread, by thinking about my Nan and her daily trips to Lol Banks betting shop in Catcliffe with a big handfull of tanner bets from our street and surrounding streets. She never actually went into the betting shop ,which took up a whole section of the viaduct between the road and the river, rather she went to the family bungalow behind the shop. She would spend at least an hour every day there was racing with Mrs Banks, whose famous son was Gordon , drinking tea and gossiping. My Nan liked a flutter as well and it was her that got me interested..in the summer of 1961, a few weeks before I left school, I dropped by at her house on my way to school and told her to put me a bob each way on Psidium.The two shillings was the last of my paper round wages. She tried every thing she could to stop me, saying things like Lester Piggot had turned down the mount. Anyway it won at 66-1 and I didn,t know until I got home. I got 4 pounds 10 shillings, thought I was a millionaire lol. Put in to perspective, my first wage about 6 weeks later was under 3 pounds