Dearest Jane... by Roger Mortimer

Author:Roger Mortimer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472105936
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

I have said that I rarely saw my father close to a horse. His own trusty steed was his typewriter. A few yards from my room at home, the hottest news in racing – as well as much of its history – would be compiled and dispatched to the nation from his study. Yet racing was an esoteric and rather intimidating world to me, full of people speaking an unintelligible language. However, I was aware of the huge pride at home when my father’s first major book was published in 1958: The History of the Jockey Club, which I have since read. It teems with as many compelling characters as a Charles Dickens novel.

It would be untrue to say I never went racing – very occasionally I had the fun of accompanying my father. The great perk was to have my father’s company to myself for the car journey back and forth, where my constant longing to be grown-up was gratified by the nature of the conversations I was able to enjoy with him.

For excitement, there was the occasional privilege of standing beside my father in the BBC broadcasting box. I regarded this as a huge honour, which could only have been improved upon had I been handed the microphone and invited on air to make a comment. Strangely enough, I wasn’t. For several years Roger was employed by BBC radio to provide commentaries on the line-up of runners prior to a race, and for the post mortem following the event. He worked alongside Raymond Glendenning initially and then the BBC’s first full-time racing commentator, Peter Bromley. These were the few occasions I was permitted to spend in my father’s company on the racecourse. It was his workplace so I would be left to my own devices – from the age of around eleven – but with a member’s enclosure badge pinned firmly to my lapel.

It wasn’t all fun and games. One boiling summer’s day, my father took me, aged thirteen, wearing my best frock and clutching my autograph book, to the ‘Celebrities’ meeting at Sandown. ‘Enjoy yourself and meet me back at the car at 5 o’clock, my dear child,’ said my father as he melted away into the crowd. The day was long, hot and, far worse, devoid of a sighting of a single star. I was hoping at least to see Adam Faith who was reputed to be a keen racegoer. Back at the red hot car at the appointed hour, thirsty and cross, another age passed before my father appeared. When he finally trundled cheerfully into view, he said: ‘Sorry I’m late, dear, but I got delayed by Elizabeth Taylor in the bar.’ It was one of our more silent journeys home.

If I have ever made a contribution to the joys of racing, it was in Northumberland. My parents came to stay and I escorted them to a icy, wind-blown winter meeting at the little country course at Hexham, way beyond Roger’s normal territory. We spent

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