MARK GILBERT: I enjoy a bet, but luckily I can walk away if I lose
The Postie Notes by Mark Gilbert
I’ve always liked having a bet, very luckily being able to walk away if I couldn’t afford it or if I was on a losing streak. I’ve only chased a losing streak once, many years ago, and when I realised it was fruitless, I gave myself a good talking to and abstained for a fair period of time. I realise that not everyone can do that, and they and their families must live a nightmare.
I was introduced to gambling by my father-in-law Stan, years before he was my father-in-law, when I was about seven years old, when he used to give Susan, Sylvia, and me a shilling (5p) each to have a tanner (sixpence – or 2.5p) each way on a horse in the Grand National, when it was in black and white.
Stan had a bet every day, and I can still remember the ticks against his horse choices in his Daily Express. He had an account with a local bookie called Bernie, and he would phone in his bet at 12.45pm every day, with the greeting “Hello Bernie, it’s Stan,” but one day he repeated the greeting and was told that it wasn’t Bernie, because Bernie had died that night. Stan soon changed sides and became a bookie when he took over Bernie's business shortly afterwards.
Susan and I would sometimes have a bet if there was a meeting on TV, and before online betting, I’d take the betting slip up to Corals, and we’d watch the races.
Our favourite meeting was Cheltenham, and Susan actually died on the day of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Susan was “very enthusiastic” when her horse was winning and would scream and shout it home. I’d take a nap on the settee in the afternoon, and two days before she died, she woke me up with a start, screaming and shouting. It sounded like she was being murdered, but no, she was celebrating as her bet came in. I kept that betting slip, her last, and never cashed it in.
I always did the football pools when they were in their glory and even Spot The Ball, all with very limited success. I was also a Littlewoods Pools agent when we ran pubs. But then the National Lottery came along, and that was the death knell for the pools.
The first Lotto tickets went on sale on my 40th birthday, and 30 years later I’m still looking for a big win, but times change, and if I did win big now I’d take great pleasure in giving it away to folk who need help.
I am doing quite well with my Premium Bonds and had the best year ever in 2024. Premium Bonds are handy because you never lose your stake, and you can cash them in to use the money when you need it and then buy them again when your funds allow. I still have two paper bonds from when I was a kid, which I won’t cash in, from 1956 and 1964, bought with birthday money.
When Linnet Barnes, late of Sammy’s Croft, Strathnaver, wrote an overview of her husband Howard’s life after his death in 2017, she noted that his father had become personnel manager of the Post Office, helping to introduce Premium Bonds. They were introduced in 1956, of which I have one pound’s worth!
I have a close group of people I compare my monthly progress with, and we’re all doing quite well; one of them isn’t online, so if they win, I deliver the Ernie letter around the 17th of the month. However, similar to the words of the Alanis Morissette song, Ironic: “An old man turned 98, he won the lottery and died the next day.” I had a disturbing moment when I delivered a Premium Bond winning letter to a house where the person had died just days before.
Mark Gilbert is a postman based in Bettyhill.
