Any of us can forget little things on leaving home in a hurry. To the chagrin of Mrs Oakley, who might need a pint of milk or a few more tonics on my way home, my mobile phone and I don’t always arrive at the races together. In that regard I have long sympathised with the former Chancellor Kenneth Clarke. He regularly left his government-issue model at home (especially when heading for a day’s cricket) complaining, ‘The trouble with mobile phones is that sometimes people call you on them.’ I even forgot my wallet one day en route to Ascot and had to borrow my day’s staking money from the esteemed financial editor Jeff Randall.
Such minor episodes of forgetfulness, though, pale beside the effort of the American Airlines pilot on whom I was relying to get me home overnight from the US last Friday in time to make it to Newbury for the Spring Trials day so stylishly sponsored every year by Dubai Duty Free.
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