Keith Mott

London & South East Classic Club – Tours Race 

I convoyed my second race of the 2007 season for the London & South East Classic Club on the first weekend in June and I must say, it turned out brilliant. The whole weekend was dominated by clear blue sky, sunshine and some very nice Northerly winds. Most of the channel races up to that weekend had been blow homes and not made the birds work, to get them fit for the longer, quality races later on in the season. I remember thinking to myself on my arrival in Tours, ‘North in the wind from a channel race at last!’

On my return from France in the early hours of Sunday morning, I found from early reports that the Tours Classic looked like a complete success, with excellent returns. With a lot of North in the wind the pigeons had a good steady race, with the winning pigeon making 1263 y.p.m. and all four section winners being placed in the first eight open positions. This Tours event must rate as one of the best races so far this season and has set the birds up nicely for the Pau Classic which is being staged next Friday, 22nd. June.

Spencer and I arrived at the Leatherhead marking station at 08.40hrs and dropped the baskets. The lads were soon busy marking the bulk of the 1,700 birds entered in this middle distance race, which includes the annual Yearling Derby. We left the marking station at 09.05hrs. to pick up the South Ockendon, Gravesend and Maidstone pigeons, which involved well over five hours none stop driving around the M25 motorway. On returning to the Leatherhead marking station, with some help from the lads we loaded the Stevenage, Steyning and Leatherhead pigeons and drove out of the gate, heading for the Portsmouth docks at 15.45 hrs. All the birds were watered at the marking stations and looked in ‘mint’ condition in the club’s baskets. After a short lunch break, we had a good run down the A3 to Portsmouth, arriving at 17.50hrs, but had to divert around the now famous Hindhead road works. We booked in and then watered the convoy on the dock. The water was dropped after dark and we sailed at 00.15hrs, arriving in Caen at 06.30 hrs.

We refuelled the transporter just before 09.00hrs near the Alencon liberation site, which will spark some good discussion at the next committee meeting! As I stated in my previous article, the L.& S.E.C.C. is one of very few organizations who mark on a Friday for their first race, which is flown from Alencon, 202 miles from my loft in Surrey. This is brilliant, as it save a night in the basket for the birds, but too achieve this we have to go the Dover / Calais route and have a 240 mile drive through the night, to get the birds on the Alencon liberation site by about 03.30hrs on the day of toss. The birds and convoyers get very little rest and of course there is the price of all that Diesel. If we went the Portsmouth / Caen route the birds would get several hours rest on Portsmouth dock, with water and then would get about another six hours rest on the channel crossing. The only ‘downer’ is that the convoy would not arrive at the Alencon site until about 09.00hrs, but it’s only a very short race and the birds would be well rested. We could let them stand with water for about an hour and then liberate them at about 10.00hrs, which is well early enough, even in a North East wind. This is only my opinion, based on convoying the Classic to seven of these 200 mile races over the years. I shore it will get a good airing at our next committee meeting and common sense will prevail, as it always does with the L.& S.E.C.C. committee.  

We arrived at the Tours liberation site at 13.05 hrs and watered the birds on our arrival. We are sent out to Tours, which is massive place, with no address, just the name of the dirt track between the two lakes where the pigeons are liberated and we wasted well over an hour trying to find the site. Finally we stopped at a Police station and they kindly directed us to the site. We fed the convoy at 15.30 hrs and I must say the birds looked in great shape. Two big Belgian transporters, containing 8,000 birds arrived on site at 17.00hrs and they were looking for an early morning toss, with the membership flying well over 400 miles. They were part of a fleet of the latest continental style transporters built and owned by the Martens firm of Belgium. They were a similar style to the Central South Classic Flying Club transporter, but were furnished with the International type plastic crates. I noticed they were feeding 100% maize! The two very smart wagons contained the Belgian Inter Provincial race and the convoyer, Erik Moppe, had been doing the job for over 40 years. The two Martens drivers were Patrick and a 19 year old lad named, Nils Van Renterghem, who spoke good English and was our interpreter for our stay at the Tours site. I was amazed that a young lad like Nils would have a H.G.V. licence and would be able to drive a massive transporter like them Belgium monsters. They kindly presented me with a ‘Martens’ white ‘T’ shirt!  

From the time we arrived in France the weather was brilliant and I’m pleased to say, a nice Northerly element in the wind. I phoned Stevie Appleby at 21.00hrs on the Friday and with excellent weather reports we both anticipated a good race. We awoke at 03.50hrs on race day, to a good bright morning with 50% thin cloud cover and the bird’s water was topped up at first light. The day very soon blossomed into bright sun shine and a cloudless blue sky. I phoned Steve at 06.30hrs and he gave me an excellent weather report for the whole race course, so we liberated at 06.50hrs in a North West wind. The convoy cleared the site in a northerly direction, in one batch very quickly. The Belgian pigeons were held over, because of adverse weather conditions at the home end. The Police turned up on the site after our liberation and Spencer had a meeting with them to sort out the true address of the liberation site, and he will be writing to the R.P.R.A. to inform them in due course. On our arrival back at Caen docks, we found brilliant weather conditions in the English Channel, with a nice Northerly breeze. Many thanks to my assistant convoyer, Spencer Noble, for all his great work on the Tours trip.

We are now looking forward to the Pau Classic next Friday, the 22nd. June. This will be my sixth trip to Pau with the London & South East Classic Club pigeons and I’m really looking forward to the trip. I can be contacted on telephone: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT        

12/6/07