In London, Hector MacDonald, James Keefe, Victoria Sporting & Racing, Wally Coomes and AR Dennis (who merged at some point.)Power brothers(can't think of their trading name),Max Thomas.
Credit bookies...Esal (went bust then reformed as New Esal ! ) Kinghorns, Denver, TNS, Bloxhams(shops as well).
The list is endless, but each of these names would lay a bet. Bookmaking as such doesn't exist any longer.

John Power was the trading name, the Jenkins brothers.

jimnast - Frontline - that's correct.  Thanks very much and well done - the name has been bugging me on and off for years.

This whole thread reminds me of just how much the game has changed for the worse.

I had a Billy Hill credit account from the early 1980's onwards. I used to bet EW on course a great deal with Leslie Steel (or was it Spencer, I always get those two surnames ar*e about face) and, to a lesser degree, on the phone.

One Monday afternoon at work I called up and asked for the price about a certain horse at Fontwell. I was quoted 9/4 and so had £100 on it. It came second and I thought that was that.

But in the Life the next day, the prices showed that the horse had returned at 5/1 and the small list of bets indicated it was never as short as 9/4. So, I wrote in to William Hill saying that if they looked at my credit account activities they would see that I was an EW punter at 7/2 or more, and that I thought the horse at Fontwell must have had its price wrongly quoted to me. I ended by saying that had it been 9/2 (my suspicion) not 9/4 when I had phoned I would have had £50 ew and not £100 win.

Inside three days they wrote back saying it had been their error, 9/2 was the price but they were changing my bet to 5/1 and thus my whole stakes were returned. Also, they had credited me with a £20 free bet on the account.

Great customer service but today, well you'd be lucky to find anyone at a bookie customer service who would know the difference between 9/4 and 9/2!!

the knight

it was spencer

everybody in the uk thought pari mutual would be better the knight ,hoped you backed dallas in the cambridgshire that afternoon on the july course the great bernard manning who loved a bet had his best ever weekend doing the double anti post dallas and dancing brave.

I can vouch for W.Hill's good customer relations as well. A few years back I made my annual visit to Paris for the Arc and I too had a credit account with WH. The 1st race that year was for unraced 2 y.olds and 1 decided to phone Hills and have £100 on a 4/1 shot which looked the part. I spoke to a clerk, who try as he might , couldn't find the race. I told him not to worry about finding it, just write down 2.0 Longchamp with the name of the horse, the settlers will find it! But he wouldn't take the bet, no matter how hard I tried. Anyway I was in time to back it on the PMU, which I did and it won. When I got back, I wrote them a letter and they credited my account with £400. Unwittingly the clerk did me a favour.

jimnast, they both won the Champion Stakes twice in successive years.

Sporting Options and Bodugi anybody remember those 2

yes ribero he was

Duke

re sporting options the guy who got the tricasts up a couple of times at Thirsk used to work for them he used to ring me up to sign up with them Paul Cooper was his name.

have a good day

Ronnie.

Surrey Racing? They used to offer individual prices on horses to complete/not complete in the Grand National (you had to bet in 'trebles' or upwards, but could pick your own combinations, rather than the 'pre-made' combinations which other bookmakers offered). I opened an account with them in the spring of 1996 to make use of that. I had 3 x £50 combos and won just over a grand (2 won, 1 lost). I had had one other bet on the account - £20ew at Cheltenham, which lost. They sent me my Grand National winnings and closed my account. I didn't see them as a good bunch.

you could also bet by phone with pts i had an account but was not even aware of the postal bit which was mentioned earlier on the thread.

very few now bet without in england nowadays i think they take the view the modern racegoer does not understand it,still plenty of books in ireland bet without some even without the front two.

nobody bets solely on the aways anymore sparrow.

Mano - trading name Charlie James - bookmaker Roy Woolgar

That was Charlie James, manoleeds.

He looked more like Barry Dennis than Barry Dennis does.

I remember blue square I think they were my first online bookmakers what happened to them?

city index were involved with blue square at first ,in the end betfair bought the company in 2013,to improve there sportbook and gaming side,the racecourse pitches were bought by a very clever hexham bookmaker who did a job the russian secret service would have been proud of.

more than the boards penzance the racegoers miss the tic tacs,my non racing friends still ask me why are there none there anymore.