Winning the football pools in1939

Now in the age of the National Lottery when a win can total £143 million and  there is a bewildering way of becoming rich from instant scratch cards to online entry the football pools seem as old fashioned as Winnergram Willie.

I am old enough to remember both the telegram and the blue uniformed lad who delivered it, and for all my life there have been the football pools.

The first was begun in 1923 and three more followed between 1925 and 1946.

Ours came by Little Fred who delivered the sheet with a smile a joke and the promise that the expected win would mean we wouldn’t see him again.

But the early evening Saturday ritual of listening to all the results being read out was followed by dark comments from granddad about Little Fred’s promises.

So with that sad memory I shall return to the picture which comes from the collection of David Harrop.

Like so many period pieces, there is a lot here to take in.

It starts with the amount of prize money on offer which back in 1939 was a real fortune for a working family, and runs on to the telegram which was the quickest form of communication given that most didn’t have a phone, and finishes with the bike which was for many the universal method of transport.

All of which just leaves the date, Saturday September 9th 1939, just a week after the outbreak of the Second World War.

I might one day go looking for who won the Littlewood's Pools for September 1939 but for now that is it apart from that obvious reflection that the winners of September 2nd might well have pondered on what they would do with their winnings on the Sunday of the 3rd as Nevile Chamberlain told Britain we were at war

Picture; Littlewood’s Pools coopon, September 9, 1939, from the collection of David Harrop