Better way of life for us.THE punters at the bookies were always full of patter pat·ter 1v. pat·tered, pat·ter·ing, pat·ters v.intr. 1. To make a quick succession of light soft tapping sounds: Rain pattered steadily against the glass. . One wee man, Barney, had a long-running joke with us. Every time we asked him how he had got on at the bookies, he said: "Ah backed a horse at ten tae wan and it never came in till quarter to three." No matter how many times, it always made us laugh. Every time we met Barney, he also told us his latest betting jokes. Our favourite was: "A big Irish fell a walks in tae the bookies in Crown Street and puts a pound oan an accumulator. "Every wan of his horses comes in and he is due pounds 10,000 fae the bookie. "But the bookie says to him, "Ah'm sorry, Paddy, ah've hid a bad day, can ye wait until the banks open on Monday and ah 'll gie ye the pounds 10,000 then?" Paddy replies, "Look, if yer gonna mess me about, give me ma pound back". There were all sorts of gamblers going about the Gorbals. I saw men bet on the stupidest of things, like the speed of competing raindrops running down a windowpane win·dow·pane n. 1. A piece of glass filling a window or a section of a window. 2. A pattern of thin lines forming large squares on a background of a different color. 3. Slang LSD. . Some days, dozens of men gathered in Florence Street for a game of pitch and toss a game played by tossing up a coin, and calling "Heads or tails;" See also: Pitch - where two pennies are thrown into the air while the crowd bet on the outcome - either two heads or two tails, or odd or evens. A man could lose his week's wages or win a small fortune. Even the bingo fanatics had their betting stalwarts. One 75-year-old woman, known as Auld auld adj. Scots Old. Adj. 1. auld - a Scottish word; "auld lang syne" old - of long duration; not new; "old tradition"; "old house"; "old wine"; "old country"; "old friendships"; "old money" Aggie ag·gie 1 n. A playing marble. [ag(ate) + -y3.] , marked six bingo books at a time. When asked what her secret was, she replied, 'Ah 've brought up 12 weans in the Gorbals and ah hiv hid tae keep an eye oan every single wan o' them. So keep in' ma eye on six bingo books at a time is a doddle doddle Noun Brit, Austral & NZ informal something easily accomplished: the test turned out to be a doddle [origin unknown] Noun 1. ." |
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