How escaping from a furious Fred Winter set me up for 40 wonderful years

This is a very simple thank-you letter from a man who has been lucky enough never to do a day's work in his life.

It is 40 years ago this week that I waddled, with no small degree of trepidation, into the office of The Sporting Life for my first job as the lowliest of sub-editors and tea boy.

A few weeks earlier at my interview with The Life's long-serving editor Ossie Fletcher he had suggested I started during the second week in March, but I politely explained this would not be possible as it was Cheltenham week.