The Elimar Personality Profile
VINNIE WILKINSON
(Questions by Jim Emerton)
Q1) Did you love and observe nature as a child, and were your parents keen on pigeons?
I was born in Skegness in 1955 in Wainfleet Road. My mother left me on a bed upstairs when I was three days old. The couple next door heard me crying and broke the door down. If they had not seen my mother leaving, I might have died. I have never seen her since that day and have no wish to. The couple who found me were allowed to foster me and, when I was three months old, we moved to a caravan site in Brigg, Lincolnshire, and we stayed there for five or six years. I remember I had a pet toad there. Then we moved to a cottage in Elsham, which, thinking back, was a bit of a slum, but it was better than a caravan.
My foster mother didn't want me. It was my foster dad, who did. They adopted me when I was eleven. My dad was my hero. He had a stroke at forty five and for weeks after he could not speak well. When he recovered more he was left with a bad limp, but his speech returned. He worked at Brigg five miles away and he cycled there and back every day in all weathers. Although my adoptive mother didn't want me, Dad more than made up for it. I now we were poor, but we were happy.
Dad got me a puppy - an Airedale-Alsatian-cross. I called him Patch. I loved that dog. He slept next to my bed and no one could touch me or he would have ‘em. When he was seven, he got distemper and the vet said he might not pull through. After ten days he sat up and looked at me. I cried all night. It left him with a twitch over his left eye, but he lived to the ripe old age of seventeen. We buried him with full military honours.
Q2) How did your competitive instincts in life develop, and what and who inspired you to dedicate yourself to winning, and are you motivated by greatness?
I suppose my competitive side started at school. I was always good at art and would paint pictures and make models to enter in school competitions. I was also good at boxing, though not through choice! Our P.E teacher seemed to like to pit us against very brutish opposition. I was one of the biggest boys in my year and he always made us box boys from the year above us. I got some beatings, but gave some as well because of my large size and boxing prowess. The smaller lads would always come and ask me and my mate, Barry Deeley, to sort the bullies out for them. Usually the sight of us was enough to make them back off and leave the littler boys alone. It got us lots of sweets and chocolate bars.
I have never bullied any one as I try to see the good in people, though sometimes it’s hard to see. I am not motivated by greatness, personally. I fly my birds to the best of my ability and hope they succeed. If they don't, I go back to the drawing board.
Q3) Did your early education and peer groups sow the seeds of your future success?
I don't think my education or peer groups helped sow any seeds of my success.
Q4) Can you describe the individual personal qualities that you demonstrate in life and sport?
I am a large, friendly old man of 58. I treat all men as they treat me, hopefully, in a good way. If I get beaten by a better bird and fancier, then I am not afraid to congratulate them. Ii then sit down and work out if it was my fault or the weather or if the birds just were not good enough.
Q5) Are you motivated by pigeon celebrity fame and culture or wish to remain relatively detached from it all. As some key fanciers do?
As you now know, fame is something I have tried to avoid. My only aim is to get the birds to achieve great feats of endurance. I am then proud of them privately. But I have lost some great pigeons sometimes. I know it has been my fault in asking too much, too many times. And sometimes fate intervened - wires or predators. When I send a bird, I am proud to enter it in any race. [Possibly contradictory here I guess he means that he’s proud when he enters them, but then regretful when they fail, possibly due to his limitations.]
Q6) Have you made a study of books, of the art and science of pigeon racing?
I have read many books on the art of racing pigeons. I’ve watched many DVDs and videos and I still enjoy doing so. I have the first five volumes of ‘Belgian Strains’ and still read them.
Q7) What, if any are your tastes in art, books and music?
I prefer landscape and portrait artwork and classical music. I love André Rieu and his waltz orchestra. I like reading on themes such as the American civil war, Genghis Khan, the Romans, Greeks and the 300 Spartans.
Q8) What is your take on the image of pigeons as perceived by the public is it a working class hobby or dominated by rich and powerful who may be different?
I think the public see pigeons as dirty vermin. It is only when you tell them how they are kept - clean and free from disease and vaccinated against PMV and Paratyphoid - and then tell them how they race from Spain and France that they suddenly tell you how they had no idea pigeons were so fascinating. ‘How do they find their way home?’ they ask.
I think locally it is still seen as a working class hobby, but all fanciers know the big money men are ruining the sport. Anyone sending 60 to 100 birds to one race is not a true sportsman. In the nationals most race entry fees are between £3.50 and £5.00. That’s £350 just to enter 100 birds. How can the likes of me and my club mates ever afford that kind of money? That figure doesn’t even include pools.
Q9) Do you like football, athletics and other sports, and who are the top in their field?
I like to watch international football matches, but weekly club games do not interest me. I love to watch athletics. It may surprise you to know I used to run marathons: the Humber marathon, five times; the Pennine marathon, twice; and three short course triathlons and two full course tris, including a 2-mile swim, 35-mile cycle ride and full marathon. Ah, those were the days! My trainer told me not to wear socks in my running shoes as if they ripple I would get blisters and to this day I never wear socks at all. My feet are always warm, which amazes the lads I work with ‘cause we work in the chillers at the factory. They wear two pairs of socks and still have cold feet.
I also like to watch the Tour de Trance and Tour of Italy. It has amazed me to watch Chris Froome and last year Brad Wiggins climb up Mont Ventoux, as if they were going to the paper shop - hard men. Lance Armstrong was another one I liked to watch, winning seven tours after having testicular cancer is something else. His drugs ban has taken the edge off it, but it still takes some doing.
Q10) How do women differ in their personal approaches to livestock?
I think women tend to have a more loving approach to their birds, showing tenderness and sentimental traits, each bird having its own name. My wife treats me like that - she gives me my own name. Not perhaps a nice one, though! Ah! Women you can't live with ‘em and you can't live without ‘em.
Q11) What is your perception on how a bird orientates and homes?
I think birds use an inbuilt compass and the Earth’s magnetic field. When we have electrical storms, they seem to struggle. If you pass your mobile phone over your compass, it will drag the needle some five degrees either way. Times that by the number of masts and hand-sets and I think we will be somewhere near to understanding the problem of losses.
The Centenary race from Nantes and the weekend Princess Diana got married were both bad for homing pigeons. Why? Because of all the transmitters and satellite dishes sending the news and coverage round the world.
Q12) Do you see mankind as being superior to other forms on earth or not?
Though it hurts me to say it, yes, I think man is superior to other life forms, but I believe that someone from beyond our solar system has had a hand in our development and I don't mean God.
Some things in our past are too awe-inspiring to be the result of natural evolution. Things carved or written by different races on different sides of the world: the Aztecs and Myans, the Egyptians, Chinese, Tibetans and Indian from India (not America) all building monuments in stone with carvings, which resemble each other. Stones weighing hundreds of tons moved and lifted into places that our own present-day cranes would struggle to do. Monuments like our own Stonehenge, aligned perfectly with stars that are millions of light years away. How could they know where these stars would be at certain times in the heavens, without telescopes? Extraterrestrial beings! Be not afraid.
Q13) What do you think about writers, committees and politics?
I like to read books. Pigeon writers I like. Committees - well, that’s another story. Usually, it’s people who want to further their own ambitions, who manage to get on them. Or money-men. Not good. Politics of any kind is bad. Lining of their own pockets comes to mind. So does firing squad!
Q14) Is a belief system of value to you?
Well, you have to remember we are animals - some more than others. Our only aim is to procreate. If you believe in nature, that’s it: Be born, grow, breed and die, like flowers, animals fish and insects. That’s all there is. What we choose to do between these events is up to us. We might even be aliens.
Q15) The Universe is vast is it possible that life exists beyond the Earth?
Of course it’s possible and very probable that life exists on other worlds. We might have to alter our perception of what life is. It may be very different from our own world. Life could be in the form of a gas or be airborne or viral. Who knows? But it could just be they are already here among us.
Or we might not want to find them. Diseases we have might be deadly to them and vice versa.
Q16) What is the ultimate goal in your pigeon life?
To be able to time in race time from Barcelona every year. I live in the wrong area to win a national, although I came close from Alençon with the BICC when I achieved 2nd, when beaten by a bird flying 170 miles shorter. But, on the whole, up here in Grimsby on the East Coast you’re flying for personal esteem.
Q17) Is strain creation still valid today?
Is strain creation valid today? Well, I don't know about strain creation. I would acquire birds that have the ability to race or home from long distances - birds from different lofts - and breed them together, hoping to get that special bird - a once in a life time athlete that will do the job asked of it on more than one occasion. If you can get more, all the better. If it breeds its own like, better still.
Q18) What must a pigeon racing great achieve to be given the distinction?
He must achieve his own particular goals, no matter what others think or say. He must be true to his own beliefs. Whether or not he ever realises his dream is not for others to say. Only he knows. His dreams are his alone. If others class him as great, that’s up them. As long as you are happy with what you have or have tried to achieve, then you are great.
Q19) Which is the top pigeon racing nation on Earth?
I think the Irish fanciers are probably the best pigeon racing nation. Competition is very keen and, as I have said before, to race across two stretches of water is phenomenal. Great birds. Great fanciers.
Q20) How do you wish to be remembered in history?
I hope if I am remembered, people would say that I was a good, kind and very good-looking guy, who was able to make people laugh and race good channel birds. It will cost me a lot to make anyone remember me.
My motto is: We only have one life, so live it!
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Elimar - December 2013