Phwoar! We're trackside at Lingfield on a rain-lashed winter afternoon, jostling with 20 other punters to get a thick one on with Barry 'Bismarck' Dennis.

'Here, meet my personality girls,' beams Bazza, thrusting a fat finger at three busty Essex sorts in high heels, stockings and little else. 'They'll be giving out free puddings later!

'You wouldn't want to do 'em, though,' he whispers conspiratorially to his front row regulars. 'No way! You'd have to fucking gag 'em first! They were talking so much shit on the way over here I had to put the radio on full blast!'

'When are your birds on again?!' shouts a pissed chav at the back, presumably desperate for his free pudding.

'On the game?!' asks Bazza, pretending to have misheard, as the crowd erupts into laughter. 'You'd be so bleeding lucky!' And they say racing is losing its characters.

Bailiffs sink the Bismarck!

The Barry Dennis story kicked off 65 years ago in Romford, Essex, home of the archetypal barrow boy market trader. Before becoming just that - temporarily - young Bazza shuttled the bets down to a (then-illegal) bookie for his stepfather, ran his school's book (illegally) and in 1954 first learned how to hedge at the local betting office (illegal as well, of course), backing Lester Piggott on Never Say Die.

But Bazza was always far more than an off-course money-mover. On Epsom Hill at the age of 12 he learned to love live racing; sucking in not the sweet Downs air but a whirlwind of odds, cash and flash bookie lifestyle. He lapped up the wheeling and dealing, the raw entrepreneurialism and the banter. He even liked the horses.

From that moment on, young Dennis knew he was never going to be a traffic warden. 'In 1961 when bookmakers were first made legal, my lifestyle became less dodgy and I became a shop manager for a while,' explains Barry, misty-eyed as he contemplates both his misspent youth and - right now - a pasting in the 1.20pm as the jolly romps home.

'And I got on the courses quite early on. I started at Romford dogs and applied for pitches everywhere. I was always on the back rows and it was tough for all of us. I was innovative in my promotions and gave it loads of lip. But I still went skint many times. I pawned everything I could find. The bailiffs were regularly round my house taking the furniture away because I was so broke - know what I mean?'

Bismarck's big breakthrough - other than the unification of Germany, you might say - was when he joined an ultimately successful campaign to win the right to buy and sell pitches. Borrowing £250,000 from mate David Johnston, he bought 15 front row joints. From then on, it was 'all singing and dancing' - or so he'd have us believe...

Putting the bling in Lingfield

'Well, not exactly,' he admits, in the trademark gravelly voice known to millions of TV punters. 'I mean, I can have a really big win at a place like Lingfield - dunno, maybe fifty grand - and that's more than I can get at Cheltenham. I work 300 days a year on the southern circuit clocking up 45,000 miles a year, which is quite a lot for a 65-year-old. And we always do well by the end of the year. But individual weeks, that's, er, different. I took such a hammering last week, I've had to downgrade my winter flight to South Africa from club to economy!

'My closest shave was a few years back at Sandown,' he adds seriously, sweating at the memory. 'Henry Cecil had this horse and John McCririck told me the box had caught fire on the way down and it had a serious case of smoke inhalation. I was having a good day, so I stood the horse for much more money than I should have done. It was in front going into the final furlong and I thought I was totally finished. Out the game. Anyway, someone in heaven must like bookmakers because it was beaten by a short head on the line.

'I could breathe again, but to be honest I never breathe that easy. Johnny Lights, Danny Robertson, the great JP McManus; they've all taken me on. I fear everyone, I tell you! I lay the bets, put the bicycle clips on and hope they all get beat!'

Morning Line glory

Ironically, it was McCririck's less-than-perfect advice that inadvertently made Bazza a household name via his pundit TV spots on Morning Line and later on At the Races. Some seven years ago Dennis was at a half-empty January meeting when Channel Four needed a bookmaking personality who would stand four favourites to get beat. None of the usual name pundits was about, so they asked Dennis to step in. He got four out of four.

The next week, the channel returned to 'expert' pundit McCririck, who stood a 6/4 horse that won by 20 lengths. Soon it was Dennis, not McCririck, who had the regular morning slot. And Dennis had won a new nickname - 'Bismarck' - because just like the sunken Nazi battleship, his nominated favourites always 'go down'.

It's on TV where most people outside the southern circuit get to meet Dennis. In case they're reading this and are wondering, his rapid-fire commentary and banter really is 100% authentic. He never stops.

This is a man who delivers one-liners all day every day, and is never, ever short of opinion. It's a non-stop racing commentary where sentences like: 'Yesterday was poor - we didn't win on the first, five favourites won on the spin then it was long faces - then a 20/1 came in and we recouped before bang! - the bookies plunged into the last favourite from 4/1 to 2/1 but it got beat,' are issued within five seconds. Really - we taped him and timed it.

It's difficult to work out how son Patrick and Bazza's glamorous assistant Angela put up with the big man on the joint. Then you realise: they learned years ago they can't get a word in edgeways, so they don't even bother trying.

'They say I'm the bookie that punters love to hate, but I reckon that's bollocks,' explains Bazza, never one to sit on the fence. 'I think it's an image thing with some of the Northern bookies, who even think I'm a cockney! I'm from Essex, for Gawd's sake! People love to take me on because I give them plenty of banter. When they win, I give them some earhole, so they wanna beat me, don't they? Mind you, people have poured pints of beer in my hood 'cause they had the hump, but that's about it.'

Bazza has a website

Between races, we lead Barry up to a Punch and Judy show he's provided free for race-going kids. Our bookie with a heart of gold is banging on about his new website where 'everyone in England' can see his prices live. It's a cracking site where 'bets are taken from the Welsh and women, and even Welsh women 'cos I'm married to one.' It's a site where (perhaps ruinously) 'bets can be made in any currency'. Unfortunately, it's also a site that doesn't work at the moment, something to do with lack of trackside broadband. A shame; because few web destinations have such colour.

'Be sure to write how nobody - nobody - gives you a better deal on the racecourse,' barks Bazza, as he stops to sign autographs and have his photo taken with his trio of leggy 'Bazza Birds'. 'I give the best deal anywhere and that's a 100% guarantee. I'm going to be buying shops soon! The top prices and biggest bets are always with Barry Dennis!'

And the most desserts, we can reveal. It's amazing, we reckon, what a camera can make young girls do - particularly Barry's 'personality' birds - as we leave Lingfield with three steamy mobile numbers and four carrier bags of puddings. But that - as the great man himself might say - is showbiz. Phwoar!