SPORT jim white RACING
Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey in I Know Where I’m Going
Stick to subtlety and suggestion. Besides, where were we going to get such a weapon from – the neighbours? (‘Oh hello Steve, have you got a hatchet I can borrow? I’m going to murder my wife and my son is going to film it.’) The perfect murder weapon, I suggested, was the dog’s slip lead. A seemingly innocuous object which works on the same principle as a hangman’s noose. I also stipulated that there should be no depiction of Mr Home Front actually carrying out the deed (a faint possibility fiction and reality could become blurred). No, I said, the camera should merely pan in on Mr HF, alone in the hallway late at night, practising the strangulation on his wrist. Or even better, simply focus on the murderer’s face as he stares thoughtfully at Lupin’s lead hanging from the door. Father and son conferred in lowered voices for some moments before reluctantly agreeing to change the hatchet to the dog’s lead. We then wondered what music should be used for the soundtrack. The final decision rested with Fred, who opted for Peggy Lee’s ‘Christmas Waltz’, to be played over shots of the neighbour’s festive lights (we didn’t have any). When filming was over, I reflected how much nicer to have played Wendy Hiller’s part in a remake of I Know Where I’m Going!, rather than Woman (Victim) in a five-minute horror film. As for Mr HF, I am slightly concerned about his resemblance to Alfred Hitchcock. When I asked whether my screen death by dog’s lead had given him ideas, he replied in his best Bermondsey accent, ‘It’s only a movie, Ingrid.’ The film is currently being edited before its screen debut on YouTube. If this column fails to appear in the next issue can someone call the police?
In March there is no better place to be than at the Cheltenham racecourse as the Festival gets under way. There is no sporting venue as bracing, as stirring, as romantic. Nowhere else are you confronted by the giddying view from the main stand across to the snowcapped hills beyond. Nowhere else can you savour the sight of twenty steaming thoroughbreds charging up a precipitous slope spurred on by the guttural roar of 50,000 voices. Nowhere else can you share the lavatories with an inebriated race-goer dressed as St Patrick, struggling to find the appropriate gap in his ecclesiastical robes. Even if you don’t have any affection for racing and wouldn’t know a handicapper’s weight if it struck you round the head, Cheltenham represents the finest people-watching in world sport. Redfaced squires in pastel-shaded tweeds, ladies beneath hats the circumference of a satellite dish, over-excited Irishmen in once-a-year suits way too thin to protect against the razor-wire wind blowing across the Cotswolds: the entire gathering appears to have been scooped from the pages of P G Wodehouse. Here, too, in the tented shopping village that blooms on the course, you will find the finest market of goods no rational person would ever need. Dozens of stalls filled with specialist hunting gear, dizzyingly pricey artwork and home furnishings at eye-watering prices jostle in the effort to relieve the racegoer of their winnings. Every year there must be conversations across the land
‘Our next speaker asks the question “Is anything certain?’’ ’
involving those returning from a good day at Cheltenham. ‘Darling, I won big on the Champion Hurdle.’ ‘And what did you buy this time?’ ‘Just an eight thousand quid rocking horse.’ Which brings us to the drink. I once went to the Festival with someone who had recently declared himself an alcoholic. This was his first outing since forswearing the booze and as we walked onto the course, every hint of blood drained from his face. Here he was battling temptation, confronted by a Guinness outlet every ten yards, by stalls dispensing champagne on tap, by 50,000 people seemingly united in their determination to vacate planet sensible. For him, this wasn’t a race meeting. It was the fourth circle of hell. He went home immediately. He thus missed the grandest day out known to man. And this year it will be even more significant. This year there will be a sense of eulogy in the air. Because this year will be the last opportunity to see A P McCoy belting up that hill. The greatest jockey who ever lived has been racing at Cheltenham for so long you would be forgiven for thinking his green- and gold-hooped riding silks were as much a part of the furniture as the St Patrick fancy dress. He has won 36 times at the Festival, including the Gold Cup twice and the Champion Hurdle three times. But after this year no more will he be persuading one-and-a-half tons of horse flesh to leap over those 15ft fences, no more will he be risking a body that has been battered in tumble and pile-up, no more will he be obliged to spend his down-time in the sauna, trying to shed recalcitrant pounds. And no more will we race-goers share the privilege of watching a true sporting giant in action. For a man with his love of competition, a life without the pain, the grind and the graft that precedes victory, will be an odd thing. Indeed there are those who wonder how a man so addicted to triumph will cope without the adrenaline rush of coming up the Cheltenham hill in first place. I have encouraging news for him. Next year he should simply take himself to the other side of the rail and watch it all unfold from the punter’s point of view, appreciate that for the spectator, too, there is nowhere as exciting as this to be in March. As long as you haven’t recently taken the pledge, that is. April 2015 – THE OLDIE 75