Keith Mott writes about winning fanciers past & present

The Champions of Yesteryear (Part 58)

 ALAN MONK OF DERBYSHIRE

The name Alan Monk had been at the top of the Derbyshire race results for many seasons, racing 34 cocks on the widowhood system. He maintained he liked racing from 240 miles through to Thurso 450 miles, with cocks only. He paired up on January 23rd and the cocks were put on the widowhood system after rearing a pair of youngsters, with them getting about 14 training chucks up to 30 miles before the first Federation race. The cocks were never trained during the racing season and were only exercised once a day around the loft. The widowhooder's were broken down from Saturday through to Monday during the racing season and the cocks always saw their hens on marking night before going into the basket. One of the best racing cocks was a blue chequer Van Loon bred by Alan's good friend, Dave Boot of Mansfield and he had won eight times 1st. club.

Alan had been a pigeon fancier for over 20 years and caught the bug from his fathewho was a fancier for many years. Alan's brother, Arthur, was his pigeon partner and they had won the Federation many times and the Midlands Championship in recent seasons. The racing loft was built 3ft. off the ground and was 24ft. long with three sections and open door trapping. While in Alan's widowhood sections we handled several of his top racers, one of which was a Busschaert blue cock that had won 1st. open Fraserburgh (318 miles) on a very hard day in 1997 and had previously won 1st. club Lerwick. Another premier pigeon was a mealy cock that had won 1st. Federation (twice), 2nd. and 4th. Federation.

Alan raced all his 70 young birds through to Perth (242 miles), as this set them up for the long distance races in later life and 50% of them were put on the darkness system. He maintained he only put half on dark because they don't seem to race well as yearlings after being on the system as young birds. The youngsters were trained every day and fed on super junior, with a few peas and maize added as the distance gets longer. The main families raced were Van Loon, Wildemeersch and Hermans, and the 16 pairs of stock birds were housed in a nice smart 14ft loft, with a wire flight. Arthur told me about the Monk's very bad hawk problem, saying they had some of their best birds killed in front of their loft and in the fields around their Derbyshire set-up.

One of the very best widowhood lofts in the Midlands, this week! If you need to contact me, you can telephone: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.