For me there was never a comedian to match Ireland’s Dave Allen, perched on his stool fastidiously flicking imaginary cigarette ash off his suit, drawing out a story with a sip of whisky and flaying with the laughter he provoked all those who set themselves in authority over us, from mothers superior to prime ministers. My favourite Allen story was the one about the two drunks in a pub who leave at ten-minute intervals, making their way home across a churchyard. The first one falls into a freshly dug grave. He tries a few jumps at the slippery sides, a few shouts for help, then settles down in a corner to sleep off his excess. Soon the second drunk, tripping over a tombstone, lands in the other end of the same grave. He, too, scrabbles ineffectually at the sides and calls unavailingly for help. At which point the first drunk wakes and sonorously declares, ‘You’ll never get out of here, mate.’ ‘But he did,’ Dave Allen used to say. ‘He did.’
How sad that he should have died just ahead of Cheltenham Festival week, when the Irish arrive in thousands for war by another name. Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once said, ‘Football’s not just a matter of life and death, it’s far more important than that.’ For racing in Festival week multiply that by ten. You will never see such a parade of national identity as when an Irish runner has stormed up the famous hill finish in first place. And I never seem to meet an Irishman who, whatever the betting pit he’s fallen into, hasn’t leapt free by the end of the week.
By the time most read this column, these days sadly on a fortnightly basis, the serious business of the Festival will be done.
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