Gamblers Anonymous

A family looks back at how it began

The Observer, February 2006

They do not look like a family who were once in turmoil. Frank is 91, gentle, elegantly dressed, balding, charming, a former GP. Sara, his wife, is a few years younger and has devoted her life to her husband and three children. At the end of last year they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. The Queen sent a card, and it still sits at the front of a table displaying more than 100 others.

One afternoon a few weeks ago, the couple were visited by their son Dan, and they gathered in the lounge of their warm and comfortable flat not far from Oxford Street, in London’s West End, to talk about things of which their neighbours are probably unaware.

Frank: I was born in London, and I grew up in Glasgow. Ever since I was young I’d always liked a flutter, and there was a lot of gambling in my family. My father was a bookie’s clerk. I graduated as a doctor in 1938 and during the war met my wife Sara in the Long Bar of the Cafe Royal. She was eight years younger than me.

Sara: I think it really became a problem when he decided to take up bridge. We were expecting our third child, and Frank said one day he’d like to go to a bridge club. He said it would entail going once a week for a couple of hours, and before a month had gone he was there three nights a week. And he lost a lot of money. There were many crises. He would come home at three in the morning, I would cause a huge scene, and of course that would give him the excuse he wanted to go out again.

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