DAVID ‘Dandy’ Nicholls, one of the very best trainers of sprinters Britain has ever known, died on Sunday. He was 61.

Taking his nickname from the actress who played Alf Garnett’s long-suffering wife in the hit television series Till Death Us Do Part, Nicholls was a native Yorkshireman and first came to public attention as the jockey who teamed up with the late David Chapman’s flying filly Soba, winner of 11 races in 1982, including the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood.