Profile Doug Tidey Anyone who has walked down Rose Lane in the summertime has, I am willing to bet, stopped to admire Doug Tidey’s colourful garden. It is a mass of colour – and there is usually a very contented black cat, Eric, lounging somewhere nearby. Doug was born in Newmarket – they were a ‘horsey’ family as his grandfather was trainer to Dr Boyce Barrow – a Harley Street surgeon. His son, Doug’s father, was a jockey until he had an accident and fractured his skull. He lay unconscious for 10 days, but he was under the care of Boyce Barrow and eventually made a good recovery although he was not able to continue racing. He became ‘Head Lad’ for Joe Orbell and then when Doug was about three years old the family moved to Old North Road in Royston and he became Head Lad for Basil Briscoe. The stables were situated in the centre of the town in King Street and I was amazed to learn that between 80 and 100 horses were stabled there before the Second World War. The string would be led out along Heath Avenue to the gallops on the Heath – I reckon there were some good opportunities for collecting manure for the roses along that route! In 1927 Basil Briscoe, along with the eccentric philanthropist Dorothy Paget, bought a young horse called Golden Miller and recognising the potential, Doug’s father broke him in and trained him to become a Grand National winner, one of the greatest steeplechasers in racing history. Doug had two older and one younger brother and although they had ponies and rode a lot they all grew too tall to become jockeys.
When the war came, Mr. Tidey could not join the forces because of his previous injuries and as there was no racing at that time, he became a driver on the airfields. When the war ended he went back to work for Willy Stevenson and had a hand in the training of Grand National winner ‘Oxo’ and the Derby winner Arctic Prince. Doug’s uncle Les Tidey was the ‘travelling Head Lad’ and he ‘travelled the horses’ often accompanied by his young nephews. From the age of 8 or 9 Doug had worked as an errand boy for Marsoms in Queens Road and during the war he delivered meat to Bassingbourn on his bike. When he was 14 his father got him a seven year apprenticeship with Pepper and Haywood to become an electrician. At the end of this time he did his deferred National Service where he was put in the Halton No.1 School of Cookery and learned the art of cooking! Leaving the RAF behind, he spent a couple of years as a chef at The Bull and then The Banyers in Royston and when Anglia Television started he sometimes worked as an aerial rigger too! It was whilst he was on a roof fixing an aerial that he first saw his wife-to-be Pattie delivering bread and gave her a wolf whistle! Doug’s best friend was the jockey Dennis Ryan and they used to ride out together on Sunday mornings. Doug had got engaged to a local girl but Dennis stepped in and stole her away. ‘I suppose you want to punch me on the nose?’ he said – to which Doug replied ‘No fear, I’ve just lost my girl I don’t want to lose my best friend as well!’ But a marriage never happened with that young lady (she kept both rings, by the way) for Doug went on to marry Pattie and Dennis married Willy Stevenson’s daughter Marshella, who is still a great friend. Their son who attended Melbourn Village College went on to become a jockey and rode the Derby winner Benny The Dip. Marrying at the age of thirty and with new responsibilities Doug set up as a self employed electrical contractor, living in Water Lane. His business was very successful and Doug says that when he drives around the area there is not a street in any village where he cannot say ‘I worked on that house’. Being an electrician can be a somewhat dangerous business, and it did happen once that he cut a live wire with un-insulated snippers. The violence of the shock threw him onto his back and he lay twitching and wondering if he were going to die! He was so relieved at his recovery that the following Sunday he decided to go to church to give thanks for his narrow escape. When he appeared at the church door Jeff Puddock the Churchwarden was so surprised that he dropped his pile of hymn books! Added to which, as he left the vicar shook his hand and asked if he was a visitor! After a couple of years in Water Lane one of his customers, Miss Rhodes, offered him the cottage in Rose Lane which they rented and later bought. Pattie worked at the well known dress shop Jane’s of Newmarket and is well remembered as a very stylish lady who always drove a racy sports car. They had one son continued on page 23
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