Keith Mott writes about winning fanciers past and present

TYRONE BUGGY OF KINGSTON

A couple months ago I wrote a little article on nine year old Tyrone Buggy, who had won a Hamworthy race in the ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-week Club at the beginning of July. It turns out the article was a bit premature as the lad has since done brilliantly with his little team of babies, winning 1st, 2nd Hamworthy in the ‘Lion Brewery’, 72nd open L&SECC Guernsey (1) and 39th open L&SECC Guernsey (2). His small team were raced on the natural system and trained most days from all point south on Danny Allison’s trainer wagon. Great pigeon flying from young Tyrone! He won his first race with his sole old bird, the black cock, ‘Ninja’, and he had raced the whole 2008 programme un-paired. The ‘Lion Brewery’ is a very hard club to win; having a big top quality membership and young Tyrone beat 145 birds to secure his first win. ‘Ninja’ was a gift ten day old youngster from Martin Penfold of Kingston and Tyrone’s mother, Sue; hand reared him to weaning age. Tyrone won £22 pools with his winner, but donated the money back in to the club funds. When I saw the Hamworthy result it was nice to see young Tyrone’s name at the top and all those premier fanciers below him. Well done mate, it was a great performance! Our Tyrone is also a keen Angler and recently caught his first Pike.

I’ve known Tyrone’s parents for many years and his mother is Sue Barnet, daughter of the late Kingston pigeon ace, Roy Barnet, and she has been in pigeons all her life. Tyrone’s dad is Barry Buggy and every one knows Barry! He says the London & South East Classic Club and ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-week Club have allowed Tyrone to be a full flying member subscription free, which he maintains is a great attitude to encourage young fanciers in to our sport and should be applauded. Barry and I go back to the late 1960’s when he used to come to watch my band, ‘The Impalas’, play at the ‘Search Light’ youth club in New Malden and the ‘Swan’ PH in Mill Street, Kingston. Great days!

An Email From John Tyerman.

John Tyerman and I have been good friends for many years and we have been through several pigeon campaigns together, including serving on the NFC and L&SECC committees and convoying pigeons together. We roomed together when we travelled for the National Flying Club committee meetings and in 2003 we convoyed the International birds to the waiting train in Belgium, when Brian Sheppard of Trowbridge won the race with his wonderful blue chequer cock, Champion ‘Legend’. When the members of the NFC sent their birds to their first International, no one really knew what an outstanding success it would be and that British racing history was in the making. That Dax International marked the start of a new era in British long distance pigeon racing and John and I were very proud to be a part of it. John was a founder member of the London & South East Classic Club and in the early days of the club, he was one of the main workers in making it a success, including convoying the Classic birds out to France on a lorry. In those days John and his wife, Linda, lived in Dorking and he was a member of the famous ‘Dorking Mafia’, a band of fancier in the Box Hill area, who supported and worked very hard for the Classic. John was a great committee worker for the L&SECC for many years until he moved to Bracklesham Bay and was the Classic’s President for three years.

I recently received this email from my good friend John Tyerman and think it makes good reading, so I have reproduced it this week:

Hi Keith,  

Seems ages since we last spoke and I have just returned from 7 weeks touring France and Spain in the caravan. We of course visited many places including Bordeaux, Pau, Lourdes, Tarbes and San Sebastian, not the actual liberation sites as such. San Sebastian is a dreadful place to race out of with it being surrounded by high peaks and only way out via the sea across the Bay. Even the road from the French Border is through deep valleys and I would never recommend it as a racepoint.

We met up with Paul and Janet Rennison and he ended up in hospital in San Sebastian after suffering a heart attack. They had been in Spain in their campervan and when we met up Paul was having regular chest pains and of course with poor Janet confined to her wheelchair following two strokes earlier this year things were not good. I insisted on taking him to hospital and he was transferred by ambulance to the major cardiac unit at San Sebastian where he received first class treatment. We took Janet daily to the hospital to see Paul  but it was a difficult time and I had to arrange for his son Kevin to fly over to eventually drive them back home to England when he was released. Back home he had a further heart attack, and was then taken into Worthing and now Brighton hospital. He had Angioplasty with a stent fitted and then his femoral artery burst needing major repair surgery, so poor old Paul has not been well now for some time. He remains in Brighton hospital but sounded very down when I spoke to him today. He has now got an infection on top of all the other problems and worries very much about Janet left at home. Over the years both Paul and Janet have given so much of their time for the fancy and nothing is ever any trouble to them. They have been tireless workers for the sport for many years and it would be nice if you could given them a mention in your notes, wishing them well for the future.

Linda was 60 yesterday (26th October) and the years have flown by, we have been married 40 years now. We are taking two of our grandchildren Callum and Kai off to the New Forrest for a few days now. See you have been very busy travelling and writing. Remember you still have to visit the  Barcelona Lofts in France. We have 80 plus yearlings flown Angouleme (350 miles) in preparation for Barcelona 2009.  Also 180 young birds for racing as yearlings in 2009. Hope you Betty and family are all well. 

Regards, John T.

PAUL & JANET RENNISON OF WORTHING

Paul Rennison is a great worker for the sport of pigeon racing and the 2003 season saw him rewarded when he won 1st Section A in the NFC Nantes National race. I must say, it's always great to see a worker win and no one deserves a bit of success more than Paul! He ran an eight bedroom hotel on the south coast at Worthing with his wife, Janet, and told me she was a great help with the pigeons, doing most of the training.

He's had pigeons most of his life and started racing in 1973 when he got married and purchased a suitable property to erect a loft. His first stock were obtained from the Frank Hall London Auctions and good local Horsham fanciers including Charlie Woods, John Cookson and Jeff Cockerall. A. R. Hill pigeons came from E. Ward through the London Auctions, and they are the birds he races today, with additions over the years from his good friend, Keith Wilkins of Lewes. Paul has always liked the longer races, six hours plus, and tells me his family of pigeons have always held their own in these type of races. His biggest thrill was clocking in on the day from Pau (550 miles) and he says that winning the London & South East Classic Club

Breeder/Buyer in the 2002 season was very nice. Pau remembers that when he started up in the sport, the late Charlie Woods had some outstanding pigeons and put up some amazing performances with his Champion ‘Pride of Sussex'. In the early 1970s Jim Sweetescot introduces Paul to the late Jed Jackson of Worthing who at that time, had access to his own telephone switchboard and spent many hours on line talking pigeons with Paul. When Jed won the Pau Grand National the Rennison family shared his table at the prize presentation and Paul says it was an unforgettable evening.

The Rennison loft has always been raced on the natural system and Paul says his A. R. Hill / Kirkpatrick pigeons have won many major prizes in National and Classic races through the years, including 25th Open NFC Pau, clocking on the day of liberation. Paul pairs his race team up in late May and flies a bit of roundabout early in the season to get the birds fit. He feeds beans all the year round and works the birds very hard in the early part of the season. They aren't broken down at any time but are fed light with pellets and a small grain mixture when they return from a race. The Rennison’s present 33ft loft was erected in 1986 and has a front corridor running the full length of the structure and 30 natural nest boxes. Paul likes deep litter on the loft floors and told me that his loft is very well ventilated, with a pantiled roof and open vent bonnets. The loft has two young bird sections which house about 65 babies each year and these are also fed on beans and raced on the natural system to the perch. The youngsters are never put on darkness.

One of the sport's workers, Paul is always ready to help out in any way he can. He had been Chairman of the Sussex South Road Federation for 17 years and is also the Chairman of the Brighton & Worthing 5 Bird Club, which had a very strong membership of 63 fanciers. He tells new starters in the sport to obtain some latebreds from a good local fancier to form the basis of their family and let the basket sort out the quality birds. He believes in inbreeding and line breeding to produce pigeons for stock and likes crosses for the race team.

That’s it for this week and I would like to finish by wishing Paul and Janet Rennison a speedy recovery from their health problems. I can be contacted on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.