ENGLAND
It was back in 1951 that Nick first set foot on English soil to make a better life for himself and his timing couldn’t have been worse.
He said: “I came on an £30 fare. The war had only been over six years and there was still rationing. Jobs were very scarce and it was a very miserable time.
“I came to stay in North London with an uncle, who had agreed to be my sponsor. Although the Cypriots were British citizens, the authorities insisted that the immigrants should not be a burden on the country.
“I stayed with my uncle but also with two of my sisters who were already living here. I was very very homesick. It lasted more than two years.”
Nick also struggled with his poor grasp of English. He says: “I managed to get a job working in an engineering factory but the wages were only two pounds and ten shillings per week.
“In the end I decided that the best place to work was a hotel, at least I would get enough food to eat.
“I started out working in the kitchens but then became a comis waiter earning eight pounds per week. By then, I was living in an attic room paying 10 shillings a week in rent.”
“I even thought about going to Australia on the £10 assisted scheme but the queue to sign up was massive. I queued for eight hours but then gave up.
One day during 1952, Nick’s sister’s husband Sotoris suggested a night out at Harringay dog track.
Nick recalls: “My brother in law and I didn’t like each other very much. He was a compulsive gambler, which I didn’t approve of. I think he thought I would become hooked too which is why he took me.
“I didn’t realise it at the time, but it was probably the golden era for greyhound racing. Harringay would be full to bursting, both sides.
“The first thing that really amazed me were the people and their reactions to the dogs winning or getting beat.
“They would be ‘effing this’ and ‘effing that’ and always had good excuses as to why they didn’t win quite often in Greek of course, that part of north London had a massive Greek population.
“It wasn’t very long before my brother-in-law achieved his aim. I started to go regularly and took an even greater interest in the betting. I would go twice a week and for trials on my day off. I had become ‘one of them’.
“I soon found myself going racing every night. If it wasn’t Harringay it would be Stamford Bridge, Clapton, New Cross, Walthamstow, Wandsworth or White City.
“Unlike many of the punters, I didn’t listen to tips or just back favourites, I began studying the dogs, and became interested in them individually.
“ I also attended all the trial sessions and to amuse myself bought a stop watch and soon became very proficient.
“Then something strange started to happen. I found that every so often, I would be wildly out on my timing. Instead of being to within three to four spots, I might be .40 and .50 out, almost always I would have the trial winners that much quicker than the trial result sheet.
“So I started to gamble those trial winners first time out and found I was backing winner after winner at big odds, in addition to my own fancies. In fact, had I been a bit shrewder, I would also have followed the dogs who were finishing second and third in the trials.
“I don’t want to accuse anybody of anything, but I became very successful and seldom had a losing night. I was also studying the dogs closely; I knew their running styles and unlike the trainers, I wasn’t biased in my opinions. I remember one night backing seven out of eight winners.
“The beaten dog finished second and I had a saver forecast. I arrived at the track with a fiver and won over £400 that night. That was a lot of money back in the early 1950s.
“Unfortunately, my system for backing dogs off trials came to an end when GRA instigated a rule whereby racing managers were supposed to get every newcomer beaten first time out.
“I continued to win at Harringay but being young and stupid, was blowing all my winnings on the other tracks or on the horses.”
Nick did however devise a very unusual system for winning at Walthamstow.
He said: “I wasn’t a regular there, it was a trickier track than Harringay, and I didn’t know the dogs. But there were people who did. I used stand near where the Chandler wives were sitting.
“I would get in the tote queue behind them and try to listen to what they were backing. It worked, I won money at it.”
But Nick’s aspirations were growing beyond graded fare.
He says: “I loved my graded racing at Harringay but soon began to appreciate the open racers. Pall Mall winner Home Luck always struck me as a very good dog.
“One of my other favourites was Galtee Cleo, who was owned by George Flintham, who I knew. I watched the dog run at Hackney and thought he was exceptional. In fact he should have won the 1953 Derby final if he had been drawn on the outside.
“In later years, I was a bit of a fan of Spectre. In his style, he could almost have been a ‘Westmead’ – Derby class but could stay as far as marathons in top class. I only ever missed one Derby final.”
While Nick followed form closely and seldom missed a meeting or trial session at his beloved Harringay, at one stage his tipping prowess bordered on the supernatural.
One morning he woke up having dreamed that he saw a sports headline in a newspaper.
He said: “The headline said ‘Oscar Wilde wins at 100-6’. I was a bit puzzled because I didn’t even know there was a horse called Oscar Wilde.
“As soon as I checked that day’s paper I saw that Oscar Wilde was due to run that day. I had to back him, not for a lot of money, I wasn’t earning very much but sure enough he won at 100-6.
“Within a few weeks I had another strange dream. I was actually watching a race and saw a dog called Grand Reject winning.
“Within a couple of days I saw that there was a dog called Grand Reject running at Wimbledon. I had to back him and sure enough he won at 8-1.
“By now I was going to bed at night hoping for another psychic dream. Nothing happened until one night I dreamt that I saw a snake swimming across a river.
“Sure enough, the next day there was a horse called Water Snake. I backed him and he won at 7-2.”
The whole story sounds far fetched bordering on drug fuelled.
Nick says: ”I know how it sounds but it actually happened. There were no other dreams when I backed losers, there were no other dreams. I can remember all the details clearly, but I can’t explain any of it.”
By this stage Nick discovered that he was becoming more and more fascinated with the behaviour and characteristics of individual dogs. He would love to go to the paddock and just marvel at racing’s superstars.
He said: “I decided that I wanted to be part of the greyhound industry.
“I applied for a kennelhand’s job at GRA’s main kennel complex at Northaw . I wasn’t accepted. It might have been because I was a foreigner, or maybe just because they were very selective and I had no background to fall back on. Northaw was very much a ‘closed shop’ in those days.
“It was at that stage that I had a long chat with myself. I decided that I would need to make some money and buy my own dogs but at that stage, I didn’t have a clue how to go about it.
“Looking back, if you had told me that one day I coulud be associated with dogs of the calibre that I used to watch and admire, I would have said you are mad.”
So often, it is the ground breaking life changes that are the most difficult to predict and Nick’s jolt onto a different course came about through one of these strange opportunities.
He said: “As I was working in the hotels, I decided to go on a three month working holiday to Jersey.
“There was a Jewish family from the East End who were staying a guests and they were a real pain in the arse. I was working as a waiter and one day they just pushed me to far and I finally lost my temper with them.
“Incredibly, it was all sorted out and I got on really well with them from then on. Before they left, they offered me a job working as a presser in their clothes factory back in London earning £8 per week.”
The work was hard and very long hours, but Nick soon found himself serving an apprenticeship in the rag trade.
The next stage came when he joined brother-in-law John and sister Maria who had a small business making clothes.
He said: “I have always been the sort of person that if I take an interest in something it absolutely absorbs me. I have to learn as much I can about it.
“I soon had enough knowledge to set about making clothes; specifically, I was able to ‘cut make and trim’ the basic procedure in the manufacture”
More importantly, Nick realised that this was the opportunity that he had craved – a chance, one day, to create a new life, owning and training his beloved greyhounds.
The plan involved making as much money as was necessary and moving to the countryside as soon as he could.
He said: “Suddenly I had a purpose in my life. I gave up gambling, not that I was ever addicted, and began economising. I became single minded on achieving my ambition. I would work as hard and for as many hours as was necessary”
With his apprenticeship completed, Nick decided to set out on his own, making clothes in a small workshop in Warren Street.
Nick said: “We were creating middle class women’s clothing and we soon had plenty of orders.”
A bigger workshop followed. Among his employees was younger brother Theo who followed the older sibling into the rag trade, as he would into the greyhound industry.
Nick, meanwhile had expanded his expertise too. He said: “I wasn’t able to design clothes, but I knew how to copy and I had a very good understanding of the whole clothing production process.
With an ever expanding order book, Nick eventually bought a factory in Tottenham and was turning out 6,000 garments a week. He handed over the smaller workshop to Theo who wanted to go it alone.
With his business career on the up-and-up, events were also unfolding in his personal life.
In 1957, he was introduced by a friend to a lady who would change his life forever, Natalie.
Nick and Natalie first met on a blind date set up by one of Natalie’s friends at the bank where she worked.
She said: “My friend had a flat in Hampstead and wanted to spend the evening with her boyfriend. But her father was very strict and the only way that she could do it, was by having a female friend there at the same time.
“I wasn’t that keen but she said that her boyfriend would bring along a friend of his to even up the numbers and I went along with it. That friend turned out to be Nick.”
So what were her first impressions of her new suitor.
She said: “I can’t really remember. His English wasn’t very good but we got on quite well, but I suppose we must have done because we met again the next day.”
It was a little over four years later, on August 19th 1961 that they married in Paddington, in the same church where Natalie had been christened.
Unsurprisingly, the marriage did not meet with widespread approval from Nick’s family.
Natalie said: “It was quite understandable. They wanted Nick to marry a girl from a similar background. It didn’t help matters that the part of the family who were living in England did little to reassure them.”
Natalie eventually met her mother-in-law and they got on well together.
But it wasn’t until after the birth of their first daughter Lisa, in 1969, that Natalie met Nick’s father for the first time.
It was Natalie’s first visit to Cyprus and it came as quite a shock.
She said: “Nick’s father and brother Peter came to meet us at Nicosia airport but within a couple of miles we were already driving on dirt roads.”
Nick soon introduced Natalie to his other great love, greyhound racing with a trip to Hendon dog track.
So when did Natalie first realise the full depth of her boyfriend’s obsession with greyhound racing?
She replies: “When it was too late.”
Nick and Natalie lived in Tuffnel Park for a short period before moving to a small house in Collindale when Nick began to fulfil a dream and become a backyard greyhound trainer.
He bought his first two greyhounds to train and built a small kennel in the back garden. They were bought as pups for £50 each.
He recalls: “One was a son of Town Prince who turned out to be a fighter. I refused to accept it originally and took him to three different schooling tracks.
“In the end I realised that they couldn’t all be wrong and I eventually gave him away for coursing. The other dog was too slow to win a race – David.
“He actually did win one, flapping at Watford but it was a photo finish, they didn’t have a photo and the result went against us.
Natalie recalls: “David was a lovely dog and we kept him for the rest of his life. When I think back now as to how we trained him, it isn’t any surprise that he couldn’t win a race.
“We used to feed him a washing-up bowl of food absolutely dripping in gravy. It was only as we listened and learned that we realised our mistakes.”
To hear Nick talk, you would be amazed that he ever trained a winner when he first started out.
He said: “I don’t think Natalie was being completely fair. In those days all kennels fed slop. David was just not very good, irrespective of my training abilities. I sent him to a professional trainer at Harringay and he was too slow to grade.
“ Although I was very amateurish, I listened and I read everything I could as I tried to learn. But very soon I realized that good dogs don’t need top trainers – and I was proof of it.”
Fortunately Nick’s luck did change thanks to a visit to a local schooling track.
He said: “A guy was moaning about a bitch that he owned that had obviously let him down the previous night. He asked if anyone would give him £30 for her which I did.
“I sent her into a trainer at Rye House and she never got beat in graded or open races and then I had her home to train myself.
“Her name was Pincano and she was a great little bitch for me. I discovered that she was an inside hare specialist. On the McKee, she would just run with them.
“She let down the guy at Rye House on a couple of occasions but despite my lack of experience, she never let me down.
“I flapped her all over the country and she won loads of opens including the Rye House Derby. It was my first taste of success.”
“I remember taking Pincano to Worksop one night and leading her around myself. Fortunately, she was in trap one which meant once I had put her in the traps I had chance to dash over to the bookies.
“ I had £20 at 8-1 on her, and then ran back onto the track ready to catch her at the pick-up – and she won.”
Like many novice trainers, Nick eventually turned to the dark side and decided to stop one of his runners.
He said: “Pincano was very well known at Watford and was always very short in the betting.
“I decided I would stop her hoping that I might get a better price next time out. I listened how it should be done from the other trainers.
“It was a warm day, and instead of leaving Pincano in her kennel on race day, I let her run around the garden to her heart’s content. I also left her with a couple of bones hoping she would tire herself out.
“We got to the track and sure enough she opened up at even money. The bookies soon realised that she was a non-trier and pushed her out to 10-1.
“She absolutely flew and did the fastest time of her career. When I realised what had happened all I could do was laugh.”
It was around this time, with the business doing well, that Nick fancied owning a real top class racer. He contacted Phil Rees who in turn put Irish agent Nicky Kervick on the case.
He came up with an unraced pup called Cricket Dance for £500.
Nick said: “That was decent money back in the early 1960s but she looked worth the money in her trials.
“She went straight into the Puppy Oaks and reached the final. Unfortunately, she badly damaged a gracilis muscle and was never be the same again.
“We sent her to Crayford which was a peat track, which would help with the problem and she did win a few races but could never fulfil her original potential.”
Nick took advice off many people in his early days, but few were more influential than Kilkenny bookmaker Patsy Browne, the man behind the ‘Dogstown’ prefix.
Nick said: “I went over to Ireland with someone who worked for me and
he took me various breeders who had dogs for sale.
“I didn’t realise it at the time but I was being recommended a lot of bad dogs and the guy who was supposed to be helping me was getting back-handers from all the breeders.
“Among the people we visited was Patsy, who my kennelman had also worked for. I was introduced to Patsy and he soon realised what was going on.
“He took pity on me and we became great friends. Apart from being a bookmaker and breeder, he was a great judge of a dog. He found many good dogs for me, the first being Ivy Hall Jewel who I bought for £500.
“Patsy came to England to stay with us for a few days. He wanted to see the set-up and offer any advice to help me. But he was extremely eccentric, very loud and with some very colourful language.
“I remember taking him down to my local and within 10 minutes he had cleared the place.
“But we stayed until about 3am drinking brandy and champagne and the land lady made more money than she would have done with a full pub.
“I remember taking him flapping to Rye House and he headed straight for the paddock. He walked straight in and began examining the dogs but no one batted an eyelid.”
“Patsy knew that I had ambitions to set up a breeding kennel and one day he offered me a bitch for sale for £300. He said: “She’s wristy. She won’t do much on the track, but she will make a great brood bitch. Her name was Hacksaw.”
Natalie says: “’Eccentric’ wouldn’t even begin to describe Patsy. We dropped in on him at home at one stage. The place was a real tip, and he was the first to say, ‘Surely you could have found somewhere better to have a cup of tea!’
“I remember he took us for a meal to a nice hotel and he turned up in wellies covered in cow shit.
“On another occasion when he came to see us, he asked to see Lisa in her pram. He peered at her for a few moments and said: ‘Be lucky! Be Lucky!’ He then threw a £5 note into the pram.
“Patsy was a character alright, but he was a very nice man too.”
By the mid to late 1960s, greyhounds were a welcome distraction from business.
At its peak Nick employed around 100 staff at his London factory in Tottenham. They made dresses to order but the factory would also produce its own garments. It was an expanding profitable business.
Nick said: “I think my greatest ability involved incorporating the design of the patterns to make best use of the available material. So although the profit on an individual dress was small, by careful design I could keep the cabbage (waste material) to a minimum and possibly get three garments from the material allowed for two.
“I would also wait to see which was the latest hit design, and before anybody else, I would buy the material and make copies.
“But I was working very long days under immense pressure. Understandably, my health was suffering. I needed either a bottle of whiskey or brandy to unwind at the end of the day.
“But 12 years after first devising my plan, my savings had increased to a point that I was ready to take the next step towards achieving my dream.”
