MURRAY HOUSE RESIDENTIAL CARE HOME - KINGSTON

by Keith Mott

Four years ago my dad passed away and my 80 year old mother started to slide down a spiralling slope of despair and could not cope with living on her own in their home in Kingston. It was a very stressful and alarming time for our family until, with the help of our friend and social worker, Berry Waga, we got her into the Murray House Home last August. In the last year things have turned around and our Iris is a much happier person, but still moans a bit!

Murray House was purpose built in 1974, being set in pleasant lawned gardens and is situated in a residential area of Kingston. The home provides accommodation for 38 residents on three floors, all served by a lift as well as stairs, and the home is wheelchair accessible throughout. The resident have their own furnished room, with their own key and there are five communal living areas with television and DVD facilities. In 2002 Murray House was designated a non-smoking establishment, so Iris has had to give up the fags!

Liliana Stark has been the activities officer at the home for the last six years and I must say this lovely lady does a wonderful job for the residents, keeping them busy with arts and crafts. Everyone at the home calls her Lili and they all think she is wonderful! She was born in South America and has worked in the Care Sector for 20 years, previously teaching languages in state and private schools. Several months ago she asked me if I would bring some pigeons in to the home and give the residents a talk on how we keep and race our birds.

With convoying for the L&SECC, writing and trying to race my own birds time is a bit tight in the summer months, but we set a date for a Sunday morning in mid-July. The day arrived, I managed to give the youngsters an early morning training toss and then I was off to Kingston armed with two old birds, two youngsters, a week old squeaker and a handful of pigeon DVDs. I got the times mixed up and arrived early, but Lili used the time well and showed the residents the BBC ‘Inside Out’ programme, my favourite pigeon DVD.

The morning really took off when I got the first bird out of my basket and I took it around the room, allowing everyone to look at it close up and stroke it. I explained the pigeon year to those present and showed them some DVDs of the L&SECC liberations in France and some footage of the BHW Blackpool Show. I told them about the British Homing World and the fact that I have been writing in the fancy press since 1972. Considering I can’t read or write, I think that is a good achievement!

I showed Lili how to hold a pigeon and after that she wouldn’t put them down, with her showing everyone at Murray House, including the office staff, her favourite, a young mealy cock, which we have now named ‘Murray’. When Lili showed the residents the seven day old squeaker the ol’ folks were transfixed and that really went down well. After a ninety minute talk and look at the sport, we liberated the pigeons in the garden and finished off a very enjoyable morning.

Tyrone Buggy of Kingston

I recently had a very enjoyable hour at the allotment loft of nine year old Tyrone Buggy, who won a Hamworthy race in the ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-week Club at the beginning of July. He won the race with his sole old bird, the black cock, ‘Ninja’, and he has 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 into 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 had a great time on my loft visit, as I’ve known Tyrone’s parents for many years and his mum had the BBQ going alongside the pigeon lofts. 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 oneknows Barry! He has been in the sport since 1984 and he tells me he has won many good prizes through the years, but thinks his best performance was in 1987 when he won the Hersham Weymouth open race, with 343 birds competing. 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 into our sport and should be applauded. Barry and I go back to the late 1960s 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!

 Drowning Maggots (Part 7) - Fishing in France

I have been a racing pigeon convoyer for the London & South East Classic Club for eight years and make regular visits to France liberating the birds in the summer months. One of our race points in mid France is Tours, a 290 mile fly back to London for the pigeons, and they are released on a road which runs between two beautiful lakes. Other angling pigeon convoyers kept telling me how good the fishing was there and although I had visited the Tours site four times, I had never taken my fishing rods and tackle box. This season my son, Mark, was my assistant for the Tours Classic and he is a very keen angler, so we took two rods and only some basic tackle because of the lack of space on the pigeon transporter. I mustered up some bait to take to France in the form of fish oil pellets, crab bollies, luncheon meat, sweet corn and a bait box full of dry lake ground bait, as I was told the main quarry at Tours were catfish. All that nice bait and Mark caught all his fish on French bread, which we had purchased for our own consumption.

The two lakes are mostly used for wind surfing and sailing boats, but I was told by a local angler that these waters contained a good head of King Carp. It was a very hot and sunny day in May, and there was not much action until the sun started to go down, and then the bites came thick and fast. Mark had a very enjoyable few hours on the bank and caught a carp and five catfish. The 2lb carp was strange, in fact I’ve never seen one like it before and wondered if it was a French species or a hybrid of some sort. The beautiful fish was marked just like a Common Carp, but looked like Crucian Carp, being saucer shaped and flat and had no spike at the front of its dorsal fin.

On our second day at the lakes we couldn’t fish as we had to concentrate on liberating 1,890 London bound racing pigeons, but there were a few local French anglers on the bank catching well. One old guy was set up near our transporter and was fishing both lakes at the same time, with six rods out. He is a well known character locally and takes everything he catches home and puts it in the freezer. We saw him catch a lot of catfish and a nice 8lb Common Carp. The two lakes at Tours have a big head of Water Fowl and several strange Otter-type creatures, which are about 36ins long, and pop up in your swim next to the float from time to time. On the racing pigeon front, about 12,000 birds were liberated between the lakes at Tours that day and we all enjoyed a great day's racing.

The article is a bit different this week and hope my readers have enjoyed it. I can be contacted with any pigeon comments on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!