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Leonard Jayne, the son of a senior civil servant, was born in 1911 in Golders Green. His father took him racing in the early Twenties and he developed a keen interest in the sport while still at school. In the early Thirties, he became a professional gambler and also moved into sports journalism, writing for the Sporting Life and the Evening Standard amongst others.
He came to Northolt Park in 1934 and was employed by
W A Read as a journalist. At the start of the 1937 season he gave the first on-course race commentaries, from the exposed roof of the Tote Stand,
which was the highest point on the course and from where the whole race could be seen, fog and rain permitting. In 1938, he contacted the BBC and initiated the outside broadcast of the PTC Derby for which he provided the commentary. He worked in all weathers, continuing through to May 1940, by which time he had given nearly a thousand race commentaries.
After The War, he was very active in the fight to save the racecourse from housing development and in the late Forties he wrote Pony Racing, Including the Story of Northolt Park which has been one of the major sources for these WWW pages.
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