HOUGHTON REGIS NEWS

FORMERLY THAMES VALLEY FEDERATION

Jo Cuthbert

A BIT ABOUT ME

I have really been meaning to get out and about, finding out info and taking pics of the characters that make up Houghton Regis Flying Club, but work and life has kept me busy. I am on half-term and now I have a bit of time, I find that I haven’t got much of the information I wanted - typical! So for those that want to read it, here is a bit about me.

Me with my favourite bird Splasher in the background

I am now 41 years young, although I don’t quite know how I have managed to get this grown up (supposedly). I have two sons, Sam is nearly 19 and Max is 15. Both now live in Ilfracombe, Devon and neither show any remote interest in pigeons, although they have learnt over the years not to expect anything of me on a Saturday. Sam is Autistic and I myself work with Special Needs Children that are in mainstream schools. I am a bit like marmite, you will either think I am alright, or you won’t. I don’t really do ‘pedigrees’ when it comes to pigeons and I am a sucker for a pretty bird, but only the feathered variety. Oh and I also love Jack Daniels, chicken and have always wanted a pygmy goat.

Today is the 29th of October and exactly four years since my Dad passed away. That obviously made me think of him more than I usually do and it also made me realise it is nearly 23 years since his Dad, my Granddad died. If it wasn’t for them I would never have been brought up be part of this sport that so many of us love.

I don’t remember ever being taught how to hold or put a ring on a pigeon, I have always just ‘known’. I don’t remember the very first Saturday I ever watched birds come home from a race, I just have always ‘known’ that our lives would revolve around pigeons and that is what we did at a weekend. What I do remember are moments and people.

I remember being seat belted in the car and taken on long drives, where we would get out, let the birds go and then drive all the way back again, usually to find they were already home. Looking back, most young kids would have found that strange. Not me - it was just what we did. I remember pigeon clubs we were members of, Molesey Club which was held at the Football Ground. We had to basket outside, in all weathers, then all the crates were put on this large trolley, I was allowed to sit on the front and be wheeled out to the main road to wait for the ‘huge’ lorry to come and collect them. It was huge to me as I must have only been five or six. I remember the clocks were read off in the footballers’ changing rooms and the big bath always used to amaze me. I remember my Dad cursing over the old Toulet clocks and holding the dials up to the light to try and match up the pin holes! I remember names like Colin Mott, Joe Stediford, Joe Szarvos, Sid Milburn, Andy and ‘Monty’ Fred and Derek Skull. I remember someone who used to bring his birds up on the back of his push-bike. I remember when the BICC was set up and my Granddad played a part in that and we had a marking station at the club with the likes of Johnny and Rose Wills, Geoff Hunt and Mike Young, who used to deliver the corn my Granddad used to sell. He always used to breed me red spangles pigeons. I loved them because they were chocolate coloured. I remember one falling down the chimney, never to return and being devastated about it. I remember Geoff Hunt breeding me my first ever Grizzle and I called her ‘Sally’ after my best friend at the time!

I remember a very important man named Keith Mott coming round to take photographs of my Granddad’s birds - this was 1978, I was five years old and we still have those photos! The birds in question were named ‘Joanna’s Pet’ (after me), ‘Pinocchio’ (this was my favourite bird in the loft) and ‘Tony’s Pride’, a bird my Granddad had bought in a sale, broken in and this hen had gone on to win the Surrey Fed on a couple of occasions. Keith wrote of them:

‘To say that Charlie and Arthur had a good season in 1978 would be an understatement, as they won three firsts in the very strong Surrey Federation. The partners won 1st Surrey Federation (2,013 birds) Plymouth, which was the longest young bird race, with a Barker dark chequer cock, which they named ‘Pinocchio’.  The 1978 Bergerac race, 460 miles, proved a good race for them, recording 1st, 2nd, 3rd in the Molesey club and 3rd in the Hersham club, with four birds clocked on the day of liberation.  Another of the 1978 Federation winners was a nice dark hen purchased at the 1976 Surrey Federation Transporter Auction, being bred by the Federation President at that time, Stan Chandler, and she won from Exeter with 2,699 birds competing. That great season produced some outstanding performances in the S.M.T. Combine for Charlie and Arthur, recording 11th open Vire, 47th open Angers, 11th open Bergerac and 27th open Vire (young birds). The Maycock’s third Federation winner of the 1978 season was a blue hen named, ‘Joanna’s Pet’, and she won from Weymouth against 3,330 birds. A brilliant loft performance!’

After Molesey we joined the mighty Hersham Flying Club and at the time that was the biggest club in the area. Names roll off my tongue: Freddy Ranabaldo, Terry Smart, Les Penycate, Peter Smith, Bruce Steadman, Brian and Dick Trussler, Johnny Keywood, Don Alexander, Roy Spencer. I remember so many more faces but I can’t put names to them. I remember the amazing breeder/buyer sales that Terry Smart used to organise. I fondly remember Roy Cooper, who, week in week out, would come up the club and tell me he had ‘forgotten’ to write out his sheet and would I do it for one pound? I remember the year we won three young bird races in a row, which in that club was a real achievement. The last race of the year was, I believe, from Wadebridge and the birds were held over for days and days, only to be brought back to the club headquarters. There were birds dead in the crates and sickness spread through our loft like wildfire, wiping out the team that had raced so well. I remember my Granddad on his hands and knees, disinfecting the lofts, only in the end to give up and rip out all the perches, burning them, killing lots of his beloved birds and having to start over. That was the one and only time I ever saw the Paramyxo virus and it was not long after that that the compulsory vaccination of birds was brought in. I remember that in those days hardly a day would go by when someone didn’t come round for a cuppa and to spend hours down the loft, talking pigeons and handling birds. It amazed me how they always found so much to talk about. They were good times.

Dad and Granddad in the late 1970s

I remember my favourite ever bird, Splasher, a red cheq cock. His ring number was GB 67F and my Granddad told me he had flown Barcelona twice, the second time taking second club. Granddad told a great story about Splasher having been ‘retired’ to the Stock loft at the age of six, after winning numerous prizes. The story goes that one day he decided to let Splasher out for a fly and when he did he flew for hours, clapping round and circling the sky. Granddad sent him to Barcelona a week later and he got second. He used to tell great pigeon stories, my Granddad, especially about his bird ‘Blue Billy’. I have to hope they are all true and have no reason to disbelieve him. I remember Splasher being blind in one eye (not when he flew Barcelona!) - he used to walk up the garden path and into the kitchen, I would pick him up and put him in the corn bin to get a good feed up. That bird would feed any young 'un that went to him and he filled his eggs until he was 20, albeit the babies were a bit weedy but there was still life in the old boy!  One day when I was 15 and Splasher was 21, Granddad came in from the garden and said he wasn’t in the loft. We never knew what happened to him but Granddad thought he had gone for a fly and not made it back. We both had a good cry about that bird.

At the age of about 12 I pestered my Dad and granddad to let me start up on my own. We then had joined the Shepperton Club, where I would much later become Secretary and I was in my element then, as we did Wednesday and Saturday racing. It was in this club I met the likes of Ny Williams, Johnny Prior, Derek Reid, Dave and Shane Mansell, Freddy Finestone, Carol and Malcolm Francis, Dominic McCoy, Steve Oliver, Dean Garrett - I could go on and on! I do remember the first ever race I won. It was a midweek young bird race and I had a white hen with one black tail feather. She arrived home, to be followed about a minute later by a big batch consisting of both my own and my Dad’s and Granddad’s birds. I was chuffed that I had beaten them and ecstatic when I found out I had won the club. My first clock, which I still have, was an old Jundes. It soon became too expensive to keep paying two lots of membership so Granddad told me he was going to resign and all the birds would be in my name. When he sadly passed away in 1992 Dad and I carried on together.

My loft today - 18 x 8ft with 3 sections

If I am honest (there may be old friends out there who will put me right) I really think it was my Granddad who knew about the birds, how to get them right and how to motivate them. He followed a strict routine - those birds went out twice a day, at the same time, early mornings and then later in the afternoon. He cleaned out twice a day.  My Granddad didn’t drive and so relied on my Dad for training, but he didn’t have the same enthusiasm for the birds and as he got older they became more of a chore. He expected the same results for little effort and it just doesn’t work like that. When I had my two boys and lived in a flat, Dad did most of the work with the birds and success was few and far between but it was still something that we did, together. Dad and I rarely agreed on the birds: he was set in his ways and didn’t like change; I wanted to change things and to win. I lost a bit of interest then and we were both kind of going through the motions. My dad was a stubborn man and would refuse to cut down on the number of birds he had. Even when I moved to Dunstable, he carried on racing the birds in my maiden name. He used to moan about them constantly but couldn’t bring himself to give them up. I think it probably kept him going in a way. It gave him a purpose. When he died and I had to go and sort the birds, Dom McCoy was my saviour and took the lot, not one bird had to be disposed of.

Now I am in Dunstable, racing in and Secretary of Houghton Regis with the Thames Valley fed. I have started again, not for the first time and am getting a good team together. I now have new friends to look up to and new memories to make, but I will not forget the ones I have made along the way. I have a smart new loft, which I will probably keep changing year on year, striving to beat the big boys. I still can’t decide which system to race: I ask advice, I listen, I will try and if something doesn’t work, I will try something else. Members will leave, new ones will join, the cycle will continue. I will win some, but will probably lose more, I will get frustrated with this sport of ours but as long as I still get that buzz, I will keep going, until I get too old and frail to carry my baskets up the club by myself.

When I look back on it, pigeon racing has probably been the one constant in my life, the one thing that has never gone away. I honestly think at times that pigeon racing has kept me sane. That is why I am passionate about it. However hard or busy life has got, the birds have remained and I think they always will. Now we are in 2014 and I am a lot older, if not wiser, but I am still wishing my life away, willing it to be next year so I can get the birds paired up and then racing will start again. I am looking forward to Epsom show on Saturday and to Blackpool. Thank you to all those who have helped me along the way over all these years.

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Elimar - November 2014