ON THE ROAD WITH KEITH MOTT

Peter & Sue Gretton of Brighton

Well the new 2009 London & South East Classic Club season is under way and I think the membership enjoyed the first race from Alencon last weekend. The new season will see Peter Gretton and my self share the Press Officer duties and I must say I’m looking forward to working with my ol’ mate, ‘Pedro’, this year. As in pasted seasons Peter will be doing the publicly in the BHW the week after the races and I will be covering the pigeon photography and winning loft reports. Peter has been the L&SECC Press Officer for several seasons and writes a regular article called ‘Pedro In The South’. 

Peter got the new 2009 racing season off to a brilliant start by winning 1st South Coast Federation (1912 birds) Lyndhurst. His yearling Staf Van Reet blue cock won the Federation by 10 ypm, doing a velocity of 1898 ypm and was raced unpaired, as his hen had deserted him and repaired to a loft mate. Well done ‘Pedro’!

Peter was born in Small Dole and has been in the pigeon sport many years, with one of his biggest interests being a Football referee for 25 seasons. In the beginning he lived in Upper Beeding where his next door neighbour, the late Bill Lee, had a loft of pigeons, and when Peter got interested he erected his first loft, and Bill gave him some birds. In his novice days, Peter says his birds got very little training and he could not look after them properly as he worked away from home most of the time. He did eventually go in partnership with his new neighbour in Brighton and has now raced on his own for the last seven seasons. His first winner was from Avranches in the Worthing club many years ago and tells me his best position was winning 1st open SMT Combine Messac.

He tells me his family of pigeons are ‘Heinz 57’, with most of them being Staf Van Reet and has been successful racing on the natural system in the longer races from France, which prefers to the sprints. Peter is only a small team man and houses his birds in a back to back loft set up, which is 16ft long, and has now installed the Unikon ETS. He feeds his natural racers depurative on Saturday and Sunday, with Widowhood mixture for the rest of the week and likes his birds sitting 14 day old eggs for the longer channel events. The 2009 season will see Peter have ago at the roundabout system, with one training toss midweek and he tells me he likes his old birds to race the full programme. The birds are parted for the winter months after the last race and every effort is made to ensure the birds have a good moult. He has 18 pairs of stock birds, which are paired up on 1st February and breeds 60 young birds each season to race. They are trained up to 25 miles and then raced on the natural system to the perch, and are made race the Federation programme. ‘Pedro’ tried the ‘dark’ system once and the following year found he was not getting the performance out of them birds.

Peter is retired from work now and says his wife, Sue, and his two grand daughters, Bethany and Sophie, have a great interest in his pigeons. He is one of the sport’s workers and is secretary of the Lewes club, Chairman of the South Coast Federation, committee member of the L&SECC and a Vice-President of the RPRA Southern Region.

Schofield & Greetham of Stanford Lee Hope

One of the workers at our South Ockendon marking station is Martin Greetham and it was a great pleasure to see him and his partner, Dolorer Schofield, at the top of the 2008 L&SECC Tarbes Classic result, recording 1st NE Section, 4th Open. Well done you two! They clocked their five year old blue cock at 18.51hrs, flying 572 miles and he was sent feeding a big youngster. The parents of this game cock were bred by George and Maureen Bates of Gravesend and he is not stranger to winning classic prizes, previously winning 24th open BICC Bergerac in 2006. Martin tells me the Bergerac race was very hard, with only five birds home on the day in the BICC and he also recorded a day bird to lift 2nd open.

He has been in partnership with Dolorer for 19 years and tells me, her father was the outstanding Essex pigeon fancier, the late Albie Holman. The partners are only interested in Channel racing and fly 12 pairs of natural racers to a 16ft x 6ft loft. They are paired up in March and are trained in the local club’s inland races, with the feed being a general ‘Irish’ type mixture. Martin has been racing pigeons since 1952 and has won countless premier positions through the years including: 1st and 2nd open Combine Lerwick (only sending two birds), 1st open Combine Fraserburgh, 1st open Combine Angouleme, 1st open Combine Le Ferte Bernard and 1st Federation Thurso five seasons on the trot. Brilliant pigeon racing! Scholfield & Greetham have had a go at the BICC Barcelona race in recent years and have won: 2003: 19th, 25th open, 4th open GDSBC (only 2 birds sent), 2004: 12th open, 2nd open GDSBC (only 2 birds sent), 2006: 8th open, 2nd open GDSBC.

John and Ann Rake of Caldicot won the W.S.R.N.F.C. from Pau (579 miles) in 2005, which was a very hard race and a couple of years ago I had the pleasure of visiting their loft in South Wales. The Pau National winner was the partners champion De Weerdt / Van Bruane dark chequer cock, ‘Steep Holme Boy’, and was raced on the natural system, being sent to the Pau National sitting 12 day old eggs. This wonderful cock was bred by the Essex partnership of Greetham & Schofield, who regularly swap youngster with the Rakes. ‘Steep Holme Boy’ was very nice in the hand, with quality silky feather and he won an R.P.R.A. Award for his Pau performance.

Old Pigeon Racing Gazettes

I recently had a phone call from Ian Johnston, asking me if I would like four old Pigeon Racing News and Gazettes, all dated back in the mid 1960s, which he had acquired from Alan and Daniel Mitchell who worked at a local paper recycling company. I had my own page in the Gazette in the early 1970s called ‘The Surrey Report’, but it was great thumbing through these issues that were published even before my time. They cost 2/6d each and were edited by R. S. E. Bishop at the editorial offices in Weybridge. In fact I had to attend a business appointment in West Byfleet today and drove past the old ‘Gazette’ offices in Brooklands Road! I wonder who ‘Old Hand’ was. I always thought it was Roy Bishop, the Gazette editor! It was nice to read two of the legends of the old Gazette again, in the form of London News by ‘The Plumber’ and Bilco’s Bulletin. ‘The Plumber’ had the same photo at the top of his page for about forty years, but what a great servant he was to the paper! 

I see the Staffordshire notes were written by ‘Silver Dawn’, I wonder if that was the great Hugh Ambler; although I think he came from Tottenham in north London. He writes about receiving some letters from his friend George ‘Swing Clear’ Slade and of course the BHW has a trophy named after this great fancier, which is for the fast velocity in the UK on a certain weekend each season. I know all about this wonderful old trophy as two of my friends have won it in recent seasons, Keith Arnold in 2007 and my Esher club mate, Roy Barnett in 2008.

The first book I picked up to read was the March 1966 issue and was amazed to read the West Middlesex notes by ‘Gay Pied’ and find an obituary to a Mr. Lakeman of Isleworth, and of course this was for the late father of our ol’ friend, Charlie Lakeman of Kingston. I’ve known Charlie since I’ve been in the sport, flying in the very strong Kingston club with him in the mid 1970s and now he is retired and racing pigeons very successfully in New Milton in Hampshire. The Obituary reads: ‘Isleworth member Mr. Lakeman recently passed away at the age of 52 after an illness lasting several weeks. His interest in pigeons first began during the time his son, Charlie, went away on National Service. He took care of the birds and after his son’s demob they formed a very successful partnership, certainly one to be reckoned with. Invariably they were either topping the list or were at least very near’. 

The January 1966 issue had a very good loft report on W. T. Gardner of Lockerbie in Scotland and what a wonderful long distance fancier he was! My late friend, Eric Cannon of Godalming, had pigeons off this fancier many years ago and I can still remember the main Gardner stock cock was a very heavy wattled dark velvet. In fact I think I have the old ‘Gardner Cock’ on cine film dating back to the early 1970’s. In the picture Willie Gardner’s very smart loft was very closed in with louvered doors, very much like our modern day lofts and he won 1st open SNFC Rennes with his champion 1961 mealy hen ‘Sky Queen’, which also recorded 25th open in 1963. Looking at the West Middlesex notes I saw that Mr. & Mrs. Tubby Tate of Acton presented the prizes at the Hampton SR club and Fred Pridham was premier prize winner. There’s two great names from the past and Fred nicked most of the trophies and £28! 

Well that’s it for this week! Thanks to Ian Johnston for sending me the old Gazettes, I really enjoyed the walk down memory lane. I can be contacted on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!