Keith Mott writes about winning fanciers past and present...

Devon & Cornwall Show Racer Society

The back end of November saw Peter Taylor and I make the 180 mile drive down to Kingsteignton in Devon to judge the Devon & Cornwall S.R. Society show. We could not have picked a worst weekend to travel, with the heavy rain and high winds blasting the UK, but it was well worth effort, with the show being a great spectacle with well over 500 birds being entered. Peter and I travelled down on the Friday afternoon and had a brilliant B & B at the Cockhaven Manor in Bishopsteignton, about a ten minute drive from Torquay, and about three miles from the show. The Show Racers were penned in barn type building and the Racing Pigeons were in a hall next door, in fact I was so busy judging I never did go and see the racers. I must congratulate the Society secretaries, David and Jill Fisher, on their brilliant show; they worked so hard all day. Well done to you both! All the old faces were present at this event, including Ron McCarthy, Colin Carter and Norman Perry, and it was nice to see Mike and Theresa Horner there, travelling all the way down from Alton to show their birds. The judges were: Show Racers – Les Petty, P. Crawford and Keith Mott: Racing Pigeons – N. Mounce and D. Clemo.

Mervyn Patt of Bideford won BIS in the Show Racer classes with a wonderful mealy cock and BIS in the Racers was a brilliant blue pied cock owned by Mr. & Mrs. Graham Thresher of Alcombe. These two cocks were judge by myself and a racing judge for Supreme Champion and a place at the 2010 BHW Blackpool Show, and after a lot of consideration we picked Mervyn’s mealy as the over all winner. Well done to the Patt family!

Mervyn was brought up with pigeons in the family and his very first birds were a couple that his Father gave him when he was just a toddler!! Mervyn and his Father had pigeons for a few years until the War and moving house meant that they had to give them up for a while but just a few years later Mervyn was back into pigeons, starting again firstly with a few Tipplers and other breeds, before he started to develop a small racing team. Mervyn remembers that at the time corn was rationed to just 7lbs a week and having to supplement the birds' food with a little rice. Being a business man in the making, a young Mervyn was over the moon when his Granddad suggested that he had could sell one of his Tipplers for a princely sum of £3, after Mervyn had only paid one shilling and six pence for it! Timing in the birds was a challenge in those early racing days as the only clock was owned by a neighbour and so a sprint down the road to the clock was also required on race days! As a 14/15 year old Mervyn started to race in his own right as a Junior and had a particularly good start, winning 5 out of the 6 races available to juniors.  Mervyn's good mate Peter Kendall won the 6th of the juniors' races that season. After a stint in the Army doing his national service, he continued with the racing and although he laughs that his Father did manage to loose a lot of his pigeons while he was away in the Army. Even though Mervyn's dog chased her cat and he was truly in the "dog house" for that! Mervyn married Margaret, the girl across the road, in 1955. 

Mervyn continued to race his birds until they moved house in 1964. At the new house, the position meant that racing was never easy and, although he continued for a while involving all the family, Mervyn steered himself more into the Showing side of things and developed a good team of Show Racers. One particular breeding season during the mid 60's was a very fraught one for Mervyn when his little girl, Jill, decided that it would be good to try and help feed the show racers by herself and then, while the birds were off their nests, take all the tiny show racers plus eggs for a nice little ride around the garden in the corn bucket. Jill could never quite understand why her Dad did not seem that pleased when he discovered what had happened!! 

The 1970s where a decade when Mervyn was showing in earnest with a young Jill doing her best to follow in his footsteps! The 70's also saw the start of the ‘Ven Lofts’ Racing Stud, with the purchase of Van Hee, Busschaerts and later the Stichelbaut and Kirkpatrick lines too.  Mervyn's successful racing stud continues to this day, with the stud being responsible for National winners including the likes of Fred Elliott’s Champion ‘Euro Lad’, winner of 1st open NFC Nantes. The 1980’s and1990's had seen Mervyn concentrate on the Racing Stud but when Jill developed the showing bug again in 2000, and she and hubby Dave decided to give it a go, Mervyn was not far behind in getting back into showing and leading the way. At its height, Mervyn's racing stud was a large one, containing 31 compartments of top class racing pigeons, although these days the show racers are gradually spilling over from their own 5 compartments and have started to steal some of the racing lofts. Going forward, Mervyn is currently down-sizing the racers and hopes to eventually wind them up in the next year or two, apart from maybe a few old favourites. As for the show racers, I think these are definitely here to stay!!

Graham Thresher has been in the sport of pigeon racing for 60 years and says he has had the great thrill of winning some good races in that time, but his biggest thrill was to win the gold medal with his blue hen at the 2007 Olympiad in Ostend, Belgium. Getting her ready for the event and then helping to win the team gold medal was a wonderful experience for him and his family. The Thresher family live near Minehead in Somerset and Graham told me, pigeons have always been in his family, with his brother, father and grandfather all being outstanding fanciers. Graham got his first pigeons when he was ten years old and won his first race from Atherstone, on the North Road, in 1983. He was a great Football fan in those days and obtained his first racing stock from his father, who was very successful. Graham flew to an 8ft.x 6ft. loft in those early days and his first club was the Minehead & District. He recalls his main mistake in his novice days was no getting birds fit enough to do the job properly. 

Graham says he had some really good birds from Tommy Thomson a few years ago, but most of his stock birds today have been obtained from David Evans of Glamorgan, and he has recorded some outstanding performances with them. He races ten pairs on the natural system and says he is not a big team man, but they have to race through to Marmande (492 miles). The racers get three 15 mile training tosses every week, they are fed on ‘number two’ racing mixture and are given ‘Red Band’ once a week when they return from the race. The Thresher’s racing loft is a 16ft.x 6ft. structure, with sputnik trapping and the stock birds are housed in an 8ft. loft. Graham cleans all the lofts out every day. He is only really interested in long distance pigeon racing and told me his pet theory is and always will be, ‘look after your birds and they will look after you’. Graham’s best pigeon is a wonderful blue chequer hen and she won ten firsts, two of then being recorded over 400 miles. A real quality racer!  He has about 30 young birds each season and these are trained the same as old bird race team, from 15 miles several times a week. They are fed on a good quality young bird mixture and are raced on the natural system, to the perch, through to last race from Eastbourne (165 miles). Graham told me he is not interested in the eye sign theory in racing pigeons, but enjoys showing his birds in the winter months. He shows in all the main events in the Cornwall area and says he won ten firsts last season!

All the Thresher family are interested in the pigeons and Graham says his wife, Gwen, is a great help and is a very good worker for the local pigeon club. The Threshers are the secretaries of the Minehead & District Club and maintain there is too much arguing in the sport, and some fancier should ‘lighten up’ and enjoy their pigeons more! When I asked Graham if he thought the sport had progressed over the last 20 years he said no, as he thinks it is getting harder to operate clubs, with there being less people willing to do the work. He advices new starters in the sport to be good members in their clubs and work hard so it prospers, and in turn our wonderful sport of pigeon racing will prosper!

I first visited the Devon & Cornwall Show Racer Society Show back in 1996, when my good mates, Alan Spedding and Jim Fitzpatrick, were down from Scotland judging their show. Betty and I were on a weekend visit to our good friend, Bob Reeves of Exeter, who had just won the Nantes National at that time and went in to Kingsteignton to see the Show Racers.

The Devon & Cornwall Show Racer Society was formed in 1970 and holds four shows each season, with these all now all being held at Kingsteignton in Devon. The venue for the shows is a local racing pigeon club's room in Kingsteignton and it has the added advantage of having fixed pens. In the early years, each of the four shows were held in different venues around the Devon & Cornwall area and the Society secretary, Jill Fisher, tells me she has lovely childhood memories of going to some of these shows along with my dad, Mervyn Patt. Until he emigrated to Australia, one of the Society's mainstays was Doug McClary and indeed Doug was the secretary from whom Jill took over the position in 2004.  Doug was one of the society's founder members and helped make the Society what it is today. As a mark of thanks for his work in the Society, members made Doug a life vice president when he stepped down from his Secretarial role to emigrate; even now, Doug still takes a keen interest in society matters and indeed is kind enough to include the show results in his Homing World articles. When Jill Fisher agreed to take over as secretary, the society was "in her blood" so to speak as her Dad (Mervyn Patt) was one of the original members of the Show Society. She has very fond memories of the shows and exhibitors from her childhood. David, her husband, holds the position of assistant secretary and performs excellent work in helping to run the shows. Dave was actually a non-fancier until Jill got back into show racers in 2000, but he is now a "dab hand" with the birds. The Society President is long time member and show supporter, George Hensley and the Chairman is Roland Thresher.

Class winners were: Class 1: 1st M. Patt, 2nd N. Perry, 3rd R. Barry: Class 2: 1st M/M B. Seward, 2nd N .Rescoria, 3rd N. Rescoria: Class 3: 1st M/M C. Carter, 2nd M/M C. Carter, 3rd  R McCarthy: Class 4: M/M C. Carter, 2nd N. Perry, 3rd J. & D. Fisher: Class 5: 1st M. Patt, 2nd M. Horner, 3rd M/M C. Carter: Class 6: 1st J. & D. Fisher, 2nd M/M R. Howman, 3rd R. McCarthy: Class 7: 1st N. Perry, 2nd N. Rescoria, 3rd M/M R. Howman: Class 8: 1st R. McCarthy, 2nd R. Barry, 3rd M. Horner: Class 9: 1st M/M C. Carter, 2nd M/M C. Carter, 3rd N. Perry: Class 10: 1st J. & D. Fisher, 2nd N. Perry, 3rd N. Perry: Class 11: 1st N. Perry, 2nd N. Perry, 3rd RJD Lofts: Class 12: 1st M. Patt, 2nd RJD Lofts, 3rd R. McCarthy: Class 13: 1st J. & D. Fisher, 2nd M/M C. Carter, 3rd N. Perry: Class 14: 1st R. McCarthy, 2nd R. McCarthy, 3rd M/M C. Carter: Class 15: 1st R. Barry, 2nd RJD Lofts, 3rd R. Barry: Class 16: 1st RJD Lofts, 2nd M/M C. Carter, 3rd G. Hensley: Class 17: 1st M/M G. Thresher, 2nd M/M G. Thresher, 3rd B. Smith: Class 18: 1st M/M G. Thresher, 2nd S. Carpenter, 3rd S. Carpenter: Class 19: 1st M/M G. Thresher, 2nd M/M G. Thresher, 3rd B. Smith: Class 20: 1st M/M M. Spear, 2nd M/M G. Thresher, 3rd M/M M. Spear: Class 21: 1st Hearn & Prouse, 2nd M/M G. Thresher, 3rd M/M G. Thresher: Class 22: 1st M/M G. Thresher, 2nd M/M G. Thresher, 3rd M/M M. Spear: Class 23: 1st M/M G. Thresher, 2nd M/M M Spear, 3rd M/M M. Spear: Class 24: 1st M/M M. Spear, 2nd M/M M. Spear, 3rd G. Hensley: Class 25: 1st M/M M. Spear, 2nd M/M M. Spear, 3rd G. Hensley: Class 26: 1st M/M M. Spear, 2nd G. Hensley, 3rd M/M M. Spear: Class 27: 1st M/M M. Spear, 2nd M/M G. Thresher, 3rd G. Hensley: Class 28: 1st M/M G. Thresher, 2nd S. Carpenter, 3rd M/M M. Spear: Class 29: 1st M/M M. Spear, 2nd G. Hensley, 3rd S. Carpenter: Class 30: M/M M. Spear, 2nd B. Smith, 3rd B. Smith: Class 31: 1st M/M M. Spear, 2nd M/M G. Thresher, 3rd S. Carpenter: Class 32: 1st M/M M. Spear, 2nd S. Carpenter, 3rd S. Carpenter.  Trophy winners were: Supreme Champion, M. Patt: Best in Show (Show Racer), M. Patt: Best Opposite Sex (Show Racer), J. & D. Fisher: Best Young Bird (Show Racer), J. & D. Fisher, Best Opposite Sex Young Bird (Show Racer), N. Perry: Best in Show (Race Bird), M/M G. Thresher: Best Opposite Sex (Race Bird), M/M G. Thresher: Best Young Bird (Race Bird), M/M M. Spear: Best Opposite Sex Young Bird (Race Bird), M/M G. Thresher.

Well done to Jill and David Fisher for organizing this wonderful show and also congratulations to them on winning Best Opposite Sex and Best Young Bird in the Show Racer classes. That’s it for this week! I can be contacted with any pigeon comments on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.