by Jeannette Kupfermann

FOR decades it was all so comforting and familiar: ‘toffs’ with yellow-rose buttonhole and topper offering a supporting arm to their lady wives as they teetered down the familiar Berkshire country lanes, their heads bobbing with a creamy froth of feathers and tulle.

It was scenes like this that made me — an Ascot local for 44 years — a racegoer all my life: my mother never tired of telling the story (apocryphal I’m sure) of how, as a mere babe of three months, she’d wheeled me in my pram to one of the race meetings and how King George VI himself had remarked on my suntanned legs.

To me, the first sighting of a grey suit alongside a gloriously excessive hat on the railway station platform in June was a sign that summer was finally here.

How genteel it all seemed. How English. How well-behaved.

So what on earth has happened to this wonderful annual event?

This week, having returned to the races for the first time in ten years, I was horrified at what I found: local residents told me of hordes of drunken hen and stag parties full of barely dressed, foul-mouthed females and their aggressive, beer-steeped consorts, descending on the town like an invading force, vomiting, urinating and fighting, effectively putting the locals under siege.

They say it’s getting worse every year — no wonder they’ve dubbed it ‘Chavscot’ — and

‘They’re not interested in the racing. They just want to get drunk’

many would be quite happy to see it shut down, even though it would end nearly 300 years of tradition.

‘I wish they’d get rid of it. It’s a pain in the bottom. It’s not good for the residents. It’s purely corporate,’ said 75-year- old William Procter, who has lived in Ascot with his wife, Kay, for more than 30 years. ‘We were members for 25 years but we’re not renewing our membership because the event has totally changed. People who go these days are not interested in horse racing. They’re just there to get drunk.’

Shona Rawlings, 62, who has lived in Ascot for 20 years, agrees that the behaviour of race-goers sinks to new lows every year: ‘I once saw a woman in her 30s or 40s, who was very nicely dressed, simply stand on the High Street with her legs apart and relieve herself right there on the pavement . . . I couldn’t believe what I saw.’

So what happened to the Ascot I loved and knew — the one where my children, now in their 40s, scampered around as little ones and played on the grass?

Back then there was little talk of ‘corporates’ taking over, of binge- drinking, ladette behaviour and inappropriate attire.

Yet when I arrived at Ascot railway station earlier this week, instead of the elegant ladies I remembered from my childhood, I was greeted by a wall of police, some with sniffer dogs, lending a slightly ominous air to the fresh June morning. It looked more like the G8 summit with an impending riot than an innocent race meeting.

As I walked down the High Street, talking to people, tales of antisocial behaviour, roads choked with cars and criminality greeted me everywhere.

Glyn Jones, 71, who, with his wife Sue, moved to the area seven years ago, say they plan their lives around the chaos every year. ‘Services here are shut down for a week because it gets so hectic and you can’t park.

‘I do like to see everyone dressed up — but what a contrast when you see them coming out with no shoes on, not able to walk straight, mascara smudged . . . such a shame because it could be such a lovely atmosphere when the weather’s fine,’ added Sue.

Others are feeling threatened by an