TABpioneer recalls the early days

By Peter Sweeney
LES Drayson was the operator of the first TAB in Pakenham.
Its birth date was May 31, 1963 – and Mr Drayson remembers it like it was yesterday.
“It was in old Fred Treloar’s barber shop and it was the tiniest TAB I’ve been in,” Mr Drayson, 87 in May, recalled.
Garfield-born Mr Drayson and his wife ran the Pakenham post office at the same time.
“My right-hand man in the TAB was my cousin Mrs Andrews. In those days, we bet on win and place, daily doubles and quinellas,” he said.
Mr Drayson, who sold his business and moved to Glen Waverley when a daughter was starting university at Monash, was recommended for the local TAB licence by former long-time Pakenham Racing Club secretary and Victoria Racing Club chairman, the late David Bourke.
“I learnt a lot about racing from David and we used to go to the races together,” Mr Drayson said.
“We were good friends and he must have seen something in me that I would be good in the TAB.”
Obviously he was.
After he finished at the Pakenham TAB, Mr Drayson became the bookmakers supervisor for the VRC.
“Yes, that was an interesting position,” he replied while laughing.
“You get villains and gentlemen together.”
Mr Drayson spent time in charge of the race day staff at Pakenham and Cranbourne.
“I only gave up some jobs a few years ago,” he said.
However, he still attends the picnic meeting at Pakenham on New Year’s Day.
“I said I would work that day for as long as I could … and I still can,” he said.
“Yes, I still follow the horses, the radio is always on.
“I was last at the Pakenham Cup about two or three years ago.”