Take a good look at Moray Smith. You may recognise him. Perhaps as a feckless maths student at Leicester Poly; later a gifted but reluctant actuary with General Accident in York; maybe as an independent pensions consultant, married with two daughters and a goatee beard.
What he really was, though, was a man with a growing realisation that what he truly wanted out of life was to turn his part-time punting into a lucrative career as a professional gambler (becoming an adviser to JP McManus wasn’t necessarily on the agenda at this stage, but if it were to happen, so be it).
Which is why, if you happened to be a betting shop manager in the broad Oxfordshire/Hampshire/Berkshire/Wiltshire area in the late noughties, you may recognise Moray as a clean-shaven geography teacher with an unconvincing wig and a borderline obsession with punting on the Cheltenham Festival. On occasions, also, a Russian spy from the Cold War era, Rab C Nesbitt or possibly a road mender.
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Published on 23 September 2025inInterviews
Last updated 18:00, 23 September 2025