Keith Mott

Writes about winning fanciers past and present

Happy 90th Birthday Jed Jackson

Unless you have recently joined the ranks of the pigeon fraternity it would be highly probable you would have heard of the great Jed Jackson of Worthing. Renowned for his truly wonderful articles he as composed over many years, giving immense pleasure to his army of readers. The blind man who won the Pau Grand National with his champion hen “Genista” in 1980. The man who flew an outstanding pigeon on the North Route before and after his great National win. He also clocked on the day out of Tarbes with the National in 2005. The man who enthralled the people listening to his after dinner speeches at the countless functions he and his good lady wife Joan, were invited to. Invitations given out of respect and adulation for this great man.

There is another side to this wonderful gentleman that only his close friends are aware of .His incredible strength. Even though he has reached his 90th. birthday , most days he still runs up and down his garden path using the handrail as his guide. He finishes these exercise’s by running up and down the four steps leading up to his garage using the handrails on either side to maintain his balance. A friend of mine told me that on a visit to Jed’s he saw him kneeling down on a freshly dug piece of ground appearing  to be searching for something. When he enquired what Jed was looking for, his reply “I am just planting out my early potatoes”. Upon closer observation my friend said he could make out Jed had a stick measuring  about 9ins, long which  he was using as a spacer  and a long piece of  string stretched between two pegs to keep a straight  line for his potatoes. What amazing determination. He has over the years given hope  and strength  to people who were going blind and naturally were extremely worried about their future. One such case was that of Mickey Moore of Swanley. After a visit to Jed’s he came away feeling confident  enough to carry on with his pigeons  ,so much so, he went on to represent his club at regional level. It’s no small wonder that he has a huge army of fans.

I can not continue this article without mentioning the tremendous support given to Jed by his wonderful wife Joan. She will be 84 this year and still attends a fitness club on a weekly basis. A marvelous hostess, a great conversationist and a brilliant cook, a fact that any visitor would endorse.

When I look back over the many years of wonderful performances put up by National winners from Pau, Jed and Joan Jackson’s win 1980 must rate as one of the most remarkable. The race was hard enough to win by a sighted person, but for a blind fancier to win, it was fantastic. Although the great Jed Jackson is famous for being ‘the blind man who won the Pau National’, his great racing performances go much further back than that, as he’s won cups and averages in the Club and Federation for many years. His wonderful wife, Joan, is a great worker for his pigeons, doing bookwork, training and general loft management with Jed. I have been in the Jackson’s garden on race day and it’s brilliant watching Jed clocking in his own pigeons. Once the bird has trapped, Joan calls out the nest box number that the racer has entered and Jed goes straight to it and clocks in, with no time wasted.

Jed’s Pau National winner was his natural blue chequer hen, Champion ‘Genista’. She was bred in 1978 from a blue cock obtained from John Langstone of the West Midlands and the National at her first time at Pau, with 5,884 birds competing. John Langstone was a great fancier, winning 1st. open N.F.C. Pau and 1st. open N.F.C. Nantes, and presented the famous, ’Langstone Gold Cup’, to the National Flying Club. The sire of ‘Genista’ was a blue chequer down from Jed’s old long distance family. Champion ‘Genista’ died in 1982, being buried under the Genista tree next to the loft and Jed maintains that she died from the effort of winning the Pau National for him. A wonderful pigeon! Many present day winners are bred down from her including Jed’s good blue hen, which spent most of her time on his shoulder, talking in his ear, as ‘Genista’ used to. She was a granddaughter of the Pau National winner. This loverly blue hen arrived home from Thurso (550 miles) at 07.00hrs, landed on Jed’s shoulder and he clocked her to win the race. Jed races both North and South Road, with the same pigeons and an interesting fact is that ‘Genista’ flew Berwick five weeks before she won the Pau National.

His famous self built loft is 12ft.x 6ft, having two sections and open window trapping. Jed says that when he built his loft, being blind, he would worked after nightfall and worked so late he lost the goodwill of his neighbours! In recent years his wonderful old loft front has shown some wood rot and has been recently rebuilt by some friends. The loft has nice big landing boards and is scraped out every day, with no litter used on the floor. Jed only races natural and says useful pigeon racing does not start until the birds go over the 250 miles stage. He keeps no more than 14 pairs of old birds and he knows every bird by handling them. He says his fingertips are his sight and knows when a stray bird is in the loft.

The birds are fed on farm beans, peas and maize. Jed breeds 24 youngsters each season and these are raced to the perch. He pairs up in March, with the long distance Nationals in mind, and likes his old birds to race through to 500 miles, North and South Road. The Jackson’s had a good blue cock, a few seasons ago, and he raced and scored from 500 miles north and south several times. A brilliant pigeon! He says winning the Pau National was wonderful, but his best memory in pigeons was when he was a young lad in the north-east of England and he had pigeons in four nest boxes in the coalhouse. He says in those days he was ankle deep in coal dust, when he won the Pau National he was ankle deep in stardust. A wonderful fancier!

Our Jed is 90 years of age on the 13th. March 2006 and is still racing his pigeons from the long distance with the National. In fact he clocked on the day of liberation from the N.F.C. Tarbes race in 2005. Brilliant stuff!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT