MIKE & PAULINE SPEAR

of Bishopsteignton

by Keith Mott  

I first met Mike and Pauline Spear at the B.H.W. Blackpool Show in January 2007 and they were buzzing with their brilliant success at the show, by winning Best Racer in Show. When I spoke to Mike he told me, ‘Over the past five years I have done quite a bit of judging of Show Birds and in that time I’ve have been fairly successful showing my own racing pigeons in the Cornwall area’. At the 2007 B.H.W. Blackpool Show he entered racing pigeons for the second time and hit the jackpot by winning Best Racer with his blue chequer Barker cock, now named ‘Blackpool’. This handsome cock has won several prizes channel racing including 5th Section N.F.C. St. Nazaire (234 miles) and 340th Section C.S.C.F.C. Cholet (270 miles). In October 2006 the Spears had two birds selected for the Great Britain team, for the Olympiad in Ostend, Belgium, where the team won joint Gold with Poland in the team event. Mike and Pauline won a Gold Medal for the best cock and their hen was placed 4th. A wonderful performance!

Mike is a self employed painter and his wife, Pauline, is his pigeon partner, and they have two grown up children. The partners race their birds on both the Natural and Widowhood systems and only train the Natural pigeon during the racing season. Mike tells me he shows the Widowhood hens to the cocks for about ten minutes on marking night and they get their mates for any thing from half an hour to an hour on their return home. The Natural racers are fed on Buxtons Irish mixture and the Widowhood racers on Buxtons best Widowhood mixture. They race the yearlings up to 250 miles, with the older pigeons going through to the longest races and Mike maintains he likes hens sitting ten day old eggs for the longer events. Mike and Pauline prefer the long distance races and told me their best result was when they won 1st and 2nd club, Section and Combine with the W.E.C.A. from Strasburg, with Stassarts bred by Frank Goldsworthy and Brioux Sions from McAlpine of Scotland.

The stock birds are paired up at the beginning of February and the race team a couple of weeks later, with the long distance races in mind. The main families kept are Tuplin’s Barkers and Ponderosa Delbar and Jan Aarden bloodlines. The Spears breed about 50 young birds every season and after training up to 30 miles, they are raced on the Natural system to the perch. Mike tells me, he likes his young bird team to race the whole race programme and feeds them on Buxtons Breeder and Weaning, and are put onto Irish Mixture once they start racing. Mike likes the ‘darkness’ system for young bird racing, but told me, he runs his own business and hasn’t got the time to do the system, but will go on it when he retires from work in a few years.

Mike and Pauline’s present loft is 34ft.x 8ft. and is a very smart ‘L’ shaped structure, which they have had for about 20 years. A holiday camp was closing down in Paignton and Mike purchased three chalets, which were stripped down and converted into a very nice loft, with a shiplap timber front. Two local fanciers, Nobby Henley and Steve Geary, help Mike build the loft, which has five sections. The loft houses eight pairs of stock birds, 15 Widowhood cocks and their hens, ten pairs of Natural racers and the young bird team.

Mike was born in Bishopsteignton and his father and brother were both pigeon fanciers. He first became interested in the birds at the age of 13, when his brother, who was eight years old than him, had pigeons in the garden and in those early days the young Mike was a good footballer and played for the school and local team. He was about 20 years old when he obtained his first pair of racing pigeons and they were Gits from a local fancier named Ken Gibbs, who still lives in the same Kingsteignton house today. Mike first started racing his pigeons when he married Pauline in 1965 and joined the Newtonian Flying Club. In those days the premier North Road fancier was Frank Goldsworthy and he sadly passed away last year. This was the time when Mike had to take their birds on a trolley to the local railway station to send to races and after about five years he joined the Kinsteignton W.B.B.F.C., which flew North Road with W.E.C.A. Mike recalls the best fancier then was Billy Wells of Chudliegh, who worked in the Clay mines of Watts, Blake & Bearne and he won numerous overseas races. Mike has had pigeons for over 40 years and says his first loft was purchased from Frank Goldsworthy, who was giving up his own pigeon to become loft manager to Bill Burnell of Paignton. Mike and Pauline lived in a flat at that time and his brother let him erect his loft in his garden on condition that Mike kept the garden tidy, as his brother hated gardening.

Mike says, like every other fancier, Hawks are his main problem and with their ever increasing numbers, regular attacks are now a way of life! He is an active member of his racing club, the Kinsteignton Abbrook Park F.C., with his main jobs being, basketing on race nights and club rep of the region. He tells me he isn’t really into the eyesign method, but likes a bright yellow eye for the long distance racers. When I asked Mike if thought the sport had changed in recent years he replied, ‘I feel the sport itself has changed very little, in that the buzz when you get a bird from a distance race appear in the sky above the loft. Racing itself is more difficult, with more race losses these days, which we can’t explain and the Hawk problem. We don’t have the youngsters coming into the sport these days, maybe it’s because there is so much choice for them that we never had as children’. Mike doesn’t breed late breds, as the few he has bred in the past have not made the grade and he maintains that the tamest birds in his loft have not been as consistent as the others he owns. Pauline told me, the partners separate the birds right after the last young bird race and feed the whole loft on Buxtons moulting mixture. She added; when the birds are breeding the birds have Hormoform in front of them all the time, as well as the usual grit, black mineral and pickstone. When the racing season starts the pigeons get Hormoform twice a week, garlic and Johnson’s tonic in the water once a week.

There you have it, the successful Bishopsteignton partnership of Mike and Pauline Spear! It just leaves me to congratulate them on their wonderful performances in the premier shows last winter. Well done to you both!

TEXT & PHOTO BY KEITH MOTT

2/1/08