The high street is quiet but Ascot's locals are happy to be spared bodily fluids

Ascot racecourse is on Ascot's High Street, as is the C E Lewis family butchers shop. One is much bigger than the other, although in only one of them is a young man called Sam bagging up pork meat for sausages.

Outside the old-fashioned establishment people walk up and down the pavement, but nowhere near as many as one would expect at 10am on the second morning of Royal Ascot.

"It's not the same," says Sam, and he's right. If you did not know it was happening, there would be no way of guessing one of the world's biggest racing events is taking place just up the road.