Whippet Racing at Backworth Village

"Everywhere you look there are whippets." This Tyne Tees report finds the sport of 'rag racing' is as popular as ever in the 70s. Harry Seymour, President of the North of England Association of Whippet Clubs, explains the meets are a family affair and private bets add to the excitement. Whippets are an explosive breed and races in the colliery village of Backworth are over in a flash, 35 in just one autumn morning. As the reporter notes, here on Tyneside 'dogs rule the weekend'.

A sport of the fancy, whippet racing was long identified with the working class and the mining communities of Lancashire and the North East – and with gambling. Reforming groups of the 1900s criticised it for emptying the pockets of the poor, hence the term 'going to the dogs'. In the 1920s bookmakers helped encourage a 'whippet revival' and invested in new electric stadiums. The commercialisation of the sport also led to the growing influence of 'the fiddle'. The last real boom time for the sport was the early 1940s. But informal meets such as this one in the 70s still drew local breeders and families from old Tyneside colliery towns and villages into a shared, participatory weekend ritual with a bet on the side.