Keith Mott Writes...

GRAHAM BUCK

OF PLYMPTON

The National Flying Club enjoyed a good hard race from Saintes, when members sent 4,503 birds and had them liberated at 05.30hrs. in a south east wind. With the very hot temperatures on the race day, a hard race was always on the cards and with the east in the wind, the early action was on the west side of the country. Sections D, G, C, J and F took all the top positions in the open result, with the first bird on the east side being clocked by Mr. & Mrs. Tony Hayward of Sandhurst , recording 1st. section E. 23rd. open.

Graham Buck of Plympton, near Plymouth, had a brilliant race, clocking three of his four entries on the day and recording 1st. section D. 1st. open. His winning pigeon, clocked at 12.59hrs., was a natural yearling blue chequer cock, sent feeding a ten day old youngster and looking at his hen again. This game cock wasn’t raced as a young bird, only being trained up to 50 miles and has raced every week this season, being sent to Lamborne (150 miles) the weekend before his Saintes National win. I’m personally very happy to report that this National winner is half Eric Cannon of Godalming bloodlines, being bred down from Champion ’Culmer Gold’, one of Eric’s N.F.C. Pau merit award winners. Graham purchased two young birds at Eric’s Paulton dispersal sale in November 2000, both being grand children of ’Culmer Gold’ and these two pigeons bred the dam of the Saintes National winner. The other half of his pedigree is Trevor Glover and Keith Bush bloodlines.

Graham has been a pigeon fancier, on and off, for 40 years and first started up at the age of 14, with birds obtained from a local fancier in his village. He tells me, to start with he wasn’t very successful, as he obtained pigeons from here, there and every where, and on the whole they were a lot of rubbish. Graham always fancied long distance racing and in 1961 obtained some good stock from W.C.T. Gundry, president of the N.F.C. in the 1960’s and started to have some outstanding success in the longer events. His first club was the Totnes H.S., which raced the east to west route, and won his first race from Templecoombe (76 miles). He maintains his early mistake was, obtaining pigeons from everywhere on starting up, instead of getting a good family of pigeons, from outstanding lofts. Graham’s first loft was a small converted garden shed, but he says he had some great fun racing to it.

Graham is only interested in long distance racing and races his birds on the natural system. He races inland club races for training, but never has a clock set and generally trains his pigeons very little, because of the very bad Hawk problem in Devon and Cornwall. Graham says the young birds have to be trained up to 50 miles, but the old birds are flagged around the loft every day. His loft is 21ft.x 8ft., has three sections and trapping is through a Sputnik for the young birds, and open doors for the old birds. He uses a straw deep litter on the loft floors and tells me it is changed about once a month. Graham tells me he is an old fashion fancier, with an old fashion natural racing system and hopper feeds farm beans, peas and maize. He pairs up his 20 pairs of old birds in the first week in March and only keeps about six stock birds. Graham says he is always on the look out for good long distance pigeons and the main families kept are Keith Bush, Trevor Glover and a few Eric Cannon. When bringing in new stock birds he always looks for good long distance performances and never the look of the pigeon. His 30 young birds are raced to the perch and if they are raced, he never bothers to have a clock set, just sending so they learn the ropes. Graham has worked in a paper mill for 35 years and says his wife, Pauline, is a great help with his pigeon management, as he is a shift worker and works odd hours. He says he would like to thank Yvonne, the lady next door, as she looks after the pigeons when Buck family are not at home and does a great job feeding them when they are on holiday. His best performance in the N.F.C., prior to winning the Saintes National was, 1st. section D. 57th. open Pau in 1998. He is a great worker for the sport, being the club secretary for many years and says in his opinion the sport of pigeon racing has gone backwards in the last 20 years. Graham never inbreeds, just pairs good pigeons to good pigeons and has never had any luck with late bred youngsters. He never feeds anything special for the moult, feeding the same mixture all the year around, but put them on barley after Christmas, to fine then down a bit, before pairing up. Congratulations to Graham on his brilliant Saintes National win!

PAUL & ARTHUR BRIDGEWATER

OF GODALMING

My late friend, Eric Cannon, took me on a loft visit to Paul and Arthur Bridgewater, who have been premier fanciers in the National and Combine events for many years. Paul won 1st. open N.F.C. Nantes on his 21st. birthday, with a game natural blue hen bred from birds obtained locally. Paul won the Nantes National at his first attempt at National flying and the champion blue hen was his sole entry in the race!

Paul and his father, Arthur, race their highly successful team of pigeons on both the widowhood and natural systems. The partners are only interested in south road channel racing and pair half their 24 widowhood cocks in December, and the other half in March, with the ten pairs of natural racers. Paul said he has his own method of widowhood, with the cocks never being broken down and only showing the hens on the short training races. On their return from the race the cocks get the hens for the rest of the afternoon and all the old birds are fed on a first class widowhood mixture.

On my visit to the Bridgewater loft I was shown their star bird, a widowhood Van Hee red chequer cock, which had won 1st. club, 1st. Surrey Federation, 2nd. open S.M.T. Combine Niort that season and during the winter won 1st. Ash Vale Open Show, which was by far the strongest local open show for racing pigeons. Paul told me during the season his widowhood cocks won far more than his natural racers. The loft’s performance in recent seasons , racing inland and from France must be described as fantastic, winning 1st. open Combine Penzance (3,592 birds), 1st. open Combine Plymouth (2,108 birds), 1st. open Combine Guernsey (10,090 birds), 2nd. open Combine Niort, 4th. open Combine Bergerac, 8th. open Combine Bergerac (twice), 1st. Section, 1st. Open N.F.C. Nantes, 5th. Section, 12th. Open N.F.C. St. Malo (10,034 birds), 4th. Section, 21st. Open N.F.C. Sartilly (8,396 birds), 6th. Section, 44th. Open N.F.C. Saintes (5,070 birds), 9th. Section, 63rd. Open N.F.C. Pau, several times 1st. Federation in inland races and many other premier prizes in the National Flying Club and London & South East Classic Club.

Paul started up in pigeons at the age of 14, with a pair of birds from a local fancier and his first loft was 6ft.x 6ft., and his first club was the local Godalming club, which was one of the strongest club’s in the Surrey Federation. Paul has been in the sport for nearly 50 years and his father, Arthur, who is his partner today, helped and encouraged him on starting up. The Bridgewater’s have four lofts, with the widowhood cocks being housed in the main 20ft. racing loft. All trapping is into sputniks. The main family raced is Busschaerts from John Palmer and Jim Fisk of Guildford, with some introductions of the Jan Aarden family. Paul reckons that generally the widowhood cocks are best up to middle distance and then the natural pigeons do better at the long distance. The partners like to train from Hayling Island on the south coast, but once the season starts the widowhood cocks arte not trained, flying out around the loft twice a day, with the natural racers going to the coast regularly through the season. Their 40 young birds are all trained to Hayling Island and have to race the full programme, through to the Young Bird National. Paul rated Eric and Pat Cannon of Godalming as the top local fanciers and said they were simply the best!