The Dog Track

My childhood memories of greyhounds in the 1980’s

Saturday nights, we go to The Dog Track. 

Usually Bolton, Blackburn or Oldham. Sometimes Preston or Doncaster. My favourite, by far, is Belle Vue in Manchester because they have beautiful fountains on the concourse that change colour.  The water leaps like a foaming tiered cake, cascading lime-green, neon-pink and electric blue……

As dog tracks go, it’s by far the classiest.

I like going to the dog track. It’s a place where each member of my family is truly happy - albeit doing different things.

My dad will hang with the guys, talking gambling with Weeble shaped men who wear hats and smoke cigars. My mum will be in the bar. She stashes Pernod in her handbag that she has taken from our ‘globe bar’ at home. To little-girl-me, our new globe drinks cabinet is one of the most fancy things I’ve ever seen; a smooth sphere that lifts to reveal green and amber glass bottles, cocktail stirrers, ice…..  I’m pleased it’s next to my budgie’s cage.  Joey must surely enjoy looking at the splendour of the world far more than the yellow plastic bird on a spring he has for company.

My mum’s friend Beryl will bring vodka, also smuggled in her bag. She is very glamorous. Her hair is stacked high, her powdered skin the colour of pale peaches and her eyes the most unusual colour. “Like Elizabeth Taylor” people say. She and mum will meet in the posh lounge that overlooks the track and slip these adult potions into their respective lemonades and cokes. Children aren’t allowed in that bit.

My brother and I will play with our ‘dog track friends’. We’ve frequented these places since being tiny so have regular mates that do the same.

Some people have garden gnomes at the bottom of the garden.

We, have a shed with greyhounds in it.

They are ‘not pets’ I am told. This, is why they cannot come in the house. They are ‘bred for racing’ and ‘like being outside’. I’m not convinced.  Especially because I’ve seen Beryl’s greyhound ‘Queenie’ on her sofa and she looks very happy there.

I like the greyhounds at the bottom of my garden. They are funny and play with me, dropping their toys at my feet for me to throw for them. Some are stripy and look like skinny tigers. ‘Brindle’ I’m informed.

The dogs each have two names - a normal name and a ‘racing name’.  There is a black one called Glen, a sandy one called Billy…..

‘Darkie’ is my mum’s favourite. He is black with white on his paws and tail.  Mum feeds him conger eels and toughens the pads of his feet with genetian violet. He is getting older and has grey patches. His cone-like face noses me. I pull back his black lips and inspect his long jaw line with its pink gums and pointy teeth that look like those of crocodiles. I like the way they fit together. His eyes are those of a seal - soulful, trusting. He likes to be fussed over.

Tonight, dad is taking the new Chevrolet out for a spin. He has a few cars. He likes speed and showing off. It’s a strange shade, somewhere between pink and burgundy and has swanky looking fittings on the interior that mimics polished wood.

It has head rests and electric windows.

“These kids don’t know how good they’ve got it. Don’t know they’re born….”

He says as he fawns over the leather seats.

It’s a phrase he’s fond of saying.

“Do thee Lynn? Do thee Lynn?”

He’s the only person who calls my mum ‘Lynn’.

“We…..grew up…..in poverty. Absolute poverty….”

He adds in tones of Chimney Sweep and Cotton Mill.

“Speak for yourself!”

Says mum.

“YOU might have grown up in poverty but I certainly didn’t! We didn’t have a lot but we always had enough…”

First stop is for petrol.

“Is this the garage where they give you Smurfs?”

I enquire excitedly. I collect them. I already have Papa Smurf with his shiny red boots, but maybe I’ll be lucky enough to bag Daisy, the girl one with pretty yellow hair. Does anyone even know the names of any of the others? The ‘bit part’ Smurfs?

Dad returns from the kiosk and I’m told that it was just a promotion, they are not giving Smurfs away anymore. “A gimmick”

Next, is a scheduled burst of nostalgia for my parents as we call at the old fashioned sweet shop. Dad returns clutching rustling paper bags of Cherry Lips and Floral Gums. He and mum talk gleefully of things I’ve never heard of like ‘sarsaparilla tablets’.

Petrol and snacks sorted, they bicker playfully over which music to listen to.

“Eee….Mr Smiths in Manchester! We saw all the greats there didn’t we?”

“We did. The Hollies, The Beach Boys…”

Sometimes, as I hear them reminiscing over of sweets and music, I can almost believe they once loved each other……

My dad sticks on Tony Christie. He fancies himself as a bit of a singer and warbles along, over-emphasising dramatic passages about love and revenge. “Drive Safely Darlin’” plays. He particularly likes songs about tragedy.

“What’s it about dad?”

On cue, the spoken part interrupts

“There’s been an accident, she didn’t stand a chance.”

Oh great… we approach the motorway with a song about a bloody car crash.

The stadium is split into various sections.

There are ‘the paddocks’ which stink of stale urine and excrement. This is the place where gobby men in tracksuits sound off about training, diet and how they expect their greyhound to ‘perform’. My dad always swears when talking to these men. He never does at home but here, there are different rules.

The race track itself (fountain aside), holds little interest for me. Piggy eyed punters in camel coats hold coloured card ‘programmes’. They place bets with shouty men calling ‘odds’. The dogs have strange sounding names; “Our Suzy”, “Little Winner”, “Northern Belle”, “Luckiest Chance”. Darkie’s racing name is ‘Fairfield Star’.

Occasionally, one of the grown-ups will ask us kids which dog we think will win.

“Pick me a winner and I’ll give you some of my winnings!”

says ‘I know Joe’, a larger than life jaundiced man in his sixties with a bald shiny head. This feels like a very important task and much time is taken deliberating who I think the lucky dog will be. Naturally, I offer the greyhound with the prettiest sounding name.  ‘I know Joe’ is this man’s nickname because apparently, you ‘cannot tell him anything. He thinks he knows it all’. Most of my dad’s friends have nicknames. There’s ‘Pragmatic Roy’, ‘Tracksuit Barry’, ‘John the Greek’…

The dogs chase the pretend rabbit around the track.

“They like it”

I am told.

The world of greyhound racing is full of trickery and deception. The older I get and more I overhear, the better I understand this.

A common tactic is to build up a reputation for a dog as a good runner so it is given betting odds as ‘favourite’, only to then feed it a heavy meal right before it races and place a huge bet on its closest rival. This is a technique that seems to make my dad and his friends rich.

The most unethical thing I ever see, is the time my dad dyes a well-known winner a different colour and enters it under another name as a newcomer - again to make lots of money.

The café is my favourite place in the stadium. There are some corroding metal bars outside the entrance upon which I swing with my friends, taking care to avoid the newly deposited steaming piles and limeade coloured trickles.

Inside the cafe there is a big white tank that dispenses milk. “Nice cold ice cold milk” says the sticker on the front, same as the advert on the telly. There is another tank beside it, full of orange juice the colour of troll hair. “Ewww….You wonder how long that stuff’s been in there” says my mum.

The teenage girls who work in the café exude effortless cool - all hair flicks and eyeliner. They look like the girls from ‘Human League’. There’s a punk one and she scares me. I won’t ask for a drink if she is on duty.

“Go on! She won’t bite yer, yer know!”

I want to be a teenager. To wear these clothes I’ve seen on Top of The Pops that hug and shine.  Tight denim, black leather, off the shoulder tops made of mesh. I want to paint my face the way I make up my Girl’s World; have my eyelids shimmer in royal blue and peacock green, my lips red and to sculpt stark angles of my cheeks. I too, would quite like a job in a cafe, I muse. How wonderful to spend every evening raking hot chocolate froth with plastic chip forks, inhaling vinegar and the perfume of ladies……..dreaming……

There is a woman called Kay whom we talk to in the café . She wears glasses, a long beige rain mac and she always makes my mum laugh.

One day Kay secures my rememberence poppy for me and accidentally ends up sticking the pin hard into my nipple. It’s an excruciating, burning sensation, my eyes water but I daren’t say anything because…..female nipples….are rude. I know this because of the pictures of Page 3 girls in underwear I’ve seen in newspapers. My dad likes the one called ‘Linda Lusardi’. Does it make it better that she shares the same name as my mother, I wonder…….I’m not sure it does make her feel better, actually…..

I go to the toilet alone and attend to my throbbing, bleeding chest, emerging minutes later, readjusted and feeling very brave.

On the way home from the dog track no-one really says very much. My dad is in a bad mood because Darkie has lost a race.

Our dining room cabinet is full of trophies won by Darkie. They are different shapes but all have marbled heavy bases, gold columns and metal greyhounds perched on the top.

I enjoy the street lights as we take the motorway home. There are warm orange ones, red ones, white ones, cats eyes… I squint and imagine each far away town as fairyland. It’s a treat to see the clusters of lights smudging the black with gentle twinkles.

Sometimes mum points out the silhouette of Pendle Hill.

“It’s where the witches go”

she says. I’m a big fan of witches. I’ve read ‘The Worst Witch’ and ‘Spook’. I scour the sky for tell-tale shapes of broomsticks.

“Faster than fairies, faster than witches, bridges and houses, hedges and ditches”

Mum offers up mysteriously in the rhythm of a train.

“We used to say that at school. Think it’s a poem, I don’t know who it’s by…..”

Finally, we turn off the motorway. The car ride is making me feel queasy now as we navigate roundabouts, stop and start in traffic lights…

“I fancy some Chinese”

Mum says.

Dad obliges and the evening ends chewing textures I seldom encounter - rubbery beef strips, stringy bean sprouts and firm discs of water chestnuts. The curry sauce scents our house with its exotic aroma of ginger and five spice. Our kitchen breakfast bar becomes a small altar of polystyrene cartons, stiff brown bags and shiny silver trays.

The following Saturday afternoon, my dad picks us all up from grandma’s.

“I’ve sold him.”

My mum looks blank.

“Darkie. I’ve got rid of him.”

Her face crumples.

“Yer kidding me, right?”

“No. He wasn’t winning any races so he’s gone now…….to Ireland.”

My mum is visibly devastated. She’s not a heart-on-her sleeve type but she’s confused and seething.

“I can’t believe you’ve done that. That’s cruel, John. He won you all that money…...for so long….”

My dad laughs callously, the way he often does when he feels cornered.

“It’s just a dog, Lynn….”

Something changes after that day. The care of the remaining greyhounds is outsourced to a bulky shaven-haired man called Ken. They will live in his kennels.

Our kitchen will no longer smell of eels.

I will no longer see the familiar stainless steel dishes.

My mum will no longer dress their wounds.

They will no longer live in our shed.

There will be no more attachment.