Kentish Express Ashford & District
Claude recalls his place in The Sun as the Punter’s Pal
A racing tipster has retired after nearly half a century of dispensing advice in his national newspaper column.
Claude Duval dubbed ‘The Punter’s Pal’ by The Sun was as much a part of the newspaper as the fixtures and fittings.
When the red top first hit the streets on November 17, 1969, he was there as the button was struck and the printing press spluttered into action and “the whole place began to shake”.
“I started in Fleet Street in the days of the hot metal press,” said Claude, who lives in the hamlet of Rolvenden Layne.
“And when I retired I was the only remaining staff member from that day when the paper first hit the streets, except for Rupert Murdoch, who used to joke when he saw me that there were just the two of us left.’”
The 71-year-old had wanted to complete 50 years at The Sun but was lured this month by a “golden redundancy package” and Claude who said he was “never one to dilly-dally” decided that the time was right to bow out.
His interest in horse-racing began when as a 10-year-old he was taken to the Ashford Valley point-to-point by his mother Faith.
“My father John had no interest in horse-racing and was the most ardent fan of Kent County Cricket Club you could imagine. He knew all the Cowdreys and cricket was his life.
“But my mother liked horseracing and I was hooked from the moment I went to my first meeting at Charing. I loved all the excitement, the colours and the jockeys,” he said.
Claude’s journalistic career began at the Crawley and District Observer but in a very short time he became racing correspondent for The Sun.
The paper’s first sports editor tasked him with interviewing someone who had never been properly interviewed before, to prove that he was worth backing.
Claude landed a warts and all interview with controversial horse trainer Captain Ryan Price at Findon, Sussex, and the course of his career was set.
He survived the Wapping dispute of 1986 when thousands of striking workers were sacked as News International’s operation led by Rupert Murdoch moved to a new plant in east London with modern technology. “When I drove to work at Wapping bricks were thrown at my car by the strikers,” he recalled.
Claude is married to Fiona, 56 and has a son James, 27, who runs his own dog-walking business. The family home is Wesley House, the Tudor building, his parents bought in 1960. It has a blue plaque commemorating Methodist John Wesley, who preached there in 1758.
“I often wondered what John Wesley would have made of a young man living in the house and working for the Page 3 newspaper,” Claude mused.
A self-confessed “cricket nut” Claude has been a keen supporter of Rolvenden Cricket Club and claims his home has more copies of Wisden’s Almanac than racing form books.
The author of four sporting biographies, Claude is working on his fifth title with the subject matter still under wraps, and he is far from being at the final hurdle of his writing career.
His job took him all over the world, reporting on all the top meetings. Acknowledging his good fortune, Claude recalled top horse trainer Henry Cecil, who he heard reciting the saying of Confucius ‘Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life’.
He said: “That applies to me, spot on.”