“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT.
RPRA Southern Region Show 2021..
The month of November saw fanciers make their annual drive up the M40 to High Wycombe for the RPRA Southern Region Show, which is one of the high lights of the show calendar in the South of England every winter. It was great to see this great event back on this season after being cancelled for two years because Covid, Bird Flu and who knows what! Thanks to the committee who invited me to judge ‘Best in Show’ again this time, but to my great disappointment, I had to decline because of my ongoing leg problem. Once again this year’s event didn’t fail to please the many fanciers who attended, being held at the Hazelmere Community Centre again, it turned out to be one of the best ever, with over 370 birds entered. The entry for this wonderful event was from all over the UK, including Scotland and Wales, and several of the judges commented on how high the standard of the birds entered was. The funds raised by the show were donated to the Raystead AS and Gurkha Welfare charities
John & Alice travelled the 400 miles from Catrine in Ayrshire, Scotland for the High Wycombe Show and won six classes, ‘Best in Show’, ‘Best Opposite Sex’, ‘Best Show Racer’ and ‘Best Points’. A wonderful performance by the partners and this year’s Southern Region ‘Best in Show’ is their fourth in recent years. The ‘Best in Show’ winner, now named ‘Gracie’, was a yearling Mosaic hen competing in her first show ever and she is a daughter of ‘Mervanic’, the winner of ‘Best in Show’ RPRA Southern Region Show for Nicole Bell in 2016. I have judged ‘Best in Show’ at the show for the previous two years and given the ‘Supreme’ award to a mother and her daughter. ‘Dottie’ was easy to pick out the previous show because she is world class and now we all know about her previous success at the BHW Blackpool Show in January 2018, her record speak for itself. A fantastic Show Racer! I gave her dam ‘Best in Show’ at the Southern Region Show in 2017 and she is a sister to ‘Bell’s Young Supreme’, the winner of Supreme Champion at the 2016 BHW Blackpool Show and they were both sired by ‘Bell’s Supreme’, the winner of Supreme Champion at the 2011 BHW Blackpool Show. What fantastic family of pigeons! In the six years that John and Alice have competed at the Southern Region Show they have won Best in Show four times and Best Opposite Sex four time, with their daughter, Nicole Bell, also winning Best in Show in 2016 with her wonderful mosaic cock, ‘Mervanic’. When I spoke to the partners after the show, they were highly delighted at winning Best in Show for the fourth time and said it was well worth the 400 mile drive down from Scotland. The weekend before the RPRA Southern Region Show, John and Alice won ‘Best Opposite Sex’ and ‘Best Show Racer’ at the Clydesdale Open Show (630 birds) and John says he would like to dedicate that win to his great friend Micky Wigan of Colrine, who passed away that week. A brilliant performance!
Class winners were: Class 1: 1st John & Alice Bell: Class 2: 1st John & Alice Bell: Class 3: 1st John & Alice Bell: Class 4: 1st John & Alice Bell: Class 5: 1st John & Alice Bell Class 6: 1st Colin Reynolds: Class 7: 1st P. Goulding: Class 8: 1st Petty & Crawford: Class 9: 1st Winter Family: Class 10: 1st Winter Family: Class 11: 1st Winter Family: Class 12: 1st Petty & Crawford: Class 13: 1st Colin Reynolds: Class 14: 1st John & Alice Bell: Class 15: 1st Mr. & Mrs. B. Leney: Class 16: 1st William & Brian Massey: Class 17: 1st William & Brian Massey: Class 18: 1st William & Brian Massey: Class 19: 1st J. Hughes: Class 20: 1st William & Brian Massey: Class 21: 1st A. Hitchcock: Class 22: 1st A. Hitchcock: Class 23: William & Brian Massey: Class 24: 1st William & Brian Massey. Trophy winners were: Best in Show - John & Alice Bell: Best Opposite Sex – John & Alice Bell: Best Show Racer - John & Alice Bell: Best Race Bird – William & Brian Massey: Best 400 miles – A. Hitchcock: Best Points Over All – John & Alice Bell.
John and Alice Bell enjoy great success with their Show Racers ever year, but enjoyed a very special show season in 2018 and kicked off with a ‘Best in Show’ with 641 birds entered at the NEHU Show in South Shield. The partners had a 340 mile round trip to this event and won BIS with a mosaic cock, which qualified for the ‘Supreme Champion’ class at the 2019 BHW Blackpool show. The day after the NEHU Show, John and Alice had another long drive down to the Midlands to win ‘Best in Show’ at the Black Country BSRF Show and the winner was the Mervin Hosking mosaic cock, which previously won BIS at the RPRA Southern Region Show for Nicole Bell. A brilliant weekend! John and Alice next show was the Clydesdale Open Show, where they won ‘Best in Show’ with a yearling blue chequer cock and with 532 birds entered, he also qualified for the ‘Suprema Champion’ class at the BHW Blackpool Show. This cock went on to win ‘Supreme Champion’ Show Racer at the 2019 BHW Blackpool Show. The day after the Clydesdale Show the partners made the 360 mile drive to Skipton in Yorkshire for the BSRF Open Show, to win ‘Best in Show’ with another Blue Chequer Cock. The next weekend they made the 800 mile drive to High Wycombe for the RPRA Southern Region Show and won ‘Best in Show’, with 474 birds competing. I judged the specials at the Southern Region Show that day and picked out a wonderful yearling Show Racer blue chequer to win ‘Best in Show’ and the hen, now named ‘Dottie’, was owned John and Alice Bell of Catrine in Ayrshire. ‘Dottie’ won her class at the BHW Blackpool Show in January 2018 and then went on to win, ‘Best YB in Show’, ‘Best Hen in Show’, ‘Best Opposite Sex Show Racer’ and ‘Best Opposite Sex’ over all with over 2,000 birds competing. Her dam, another beautiful blue chequer hen, won her class on the day at the RPRA Southern Region Show and was ‘Best in Show’ at the Region Show in 2017. John and Alice also won ‘Best Racer in Show’ with beautiful six year old blue chequer pied hen and she had previously won ‘Best in Show’ at the Kingdom of Fife open show (450 birds), and then won ‘Best Racer in Show’ at the Kingdom of Fife in 2017. Talking to John at the Region Show he told me, he had entered eight classes on the day and won six firsts. The following weekend they made the 150 mile round trip to Fife for the Kingdom Open Show (510 birds) and won ‘Best in Show’ with young blue chequer hen, which was a full sister to Southern Region Show winner, ‘Dottie’. John and Alice travelled the length and breadth of the country to compete with their wonderful team of Show Racers and won six times ‘Best in Show’ and had four birds qualify for the ‘Supreme Champion’ class at 2019 BHW Blackpool Show. A wonderful performance!
Thousands of fanciers made the drive up to Blackpool in mid-January 2018 for the main event of the Show Racer calendar, the 46th British Homing World ‘Show of the Year’. John and Alice Bell won ‘Supreme Champion’ at the Blackpool Show for a record sixth time. There winning pigeon was a wonderful sliver blue hen, now named ‘Mary’s Dream Supreme’ after John’s late mother, Mary and she won Best in Show at the Kingdom of Fife Show (506 birds) to qualify for her place al Blackpool. The Bell show loft has had tremendous success at the Blackpool Show over the years winning: ‘Supreme Champion’ six times, including winning it over the last three years on the trot, Reserve ‘Supreme Champion’ five times, ‘Best in Show’ twice and Reserve ‘Best in Show’ twice. ‘Mary’s Dream Supreme’ is a half-sister to ‘Bell’s Young Supreme’, the Blackpool ‘Supreme Champion’ in 2016. A fantastic achievement! I had a conversation with John after the Blackpool show and he told me that they had a bad start to the current show season, with Alice going in and out of hospital over the period of the first three major shows, but once she got back in to her roll of the pigeon management they won BIS at the RPRA Southern Region Show (six firsts), BIS at the Kingdom of Fife Show (six firsts) and BIS at the Black Country Show (two firsts). John and Alice had two class winners at the Blackpool Show, with a young blue chequer hen winning: Best Hen, Best Young Bird, Reserve ‘Best in Show’ and the loft won ‘Fancier Gaining Best Points’.
Best in Show over all at Blackpool in 2017 was won by a yearling Show Racer mealy cock owned by John and Alice Bell and when I spoke to John at the event on Saturday morning he said, that the partners were thrilled to win Best in Show at Blackpool for the second time. The handsome cock named, ‘Anniversary Supreme’ is a Show Racer champion in the truest sense of the word, also going on to win ‘Supreme Champion’ of the Blackpool Show in 2017. This wonderful Scottish partnership were also runner up in the ‘Supreme Champion’ class with a full brother to their good two year old blue chequer cock, ‘Bell’s Young Supreme’, the winner of ‘Supreme Champion’ at the BHW Blackpool Show in 2016. The sire of these two champion cocks was ‘Bell’s Supreme’ and he was also in the ‘Supreme Champion’ class this time at eight years of age, and he won BIS (800 birds) at the SHU Show in 2016 and 2017. John tells me the partners have won ‘Supreme Champion’ at the BHW Blackpool Show five times and thinks it is a record. A fantastic achievement! John and Alice Bell always have great success where ever they compete and before their 2017 Blackpool Show success, they also had a brilliant 2016 Blackpool Show winning four first, several trophies and ‘Supreme Champion’. The Bell partnership started showing at Blackpool in 2003 and have won ‘Supreme Champion’ an amazing six times and have been runner up five times! This Blackpool success finished off a wonderful 2015/16 show season for them, when they had won several premier shows. That season’s ‘Supreme Champion’ was their good yearling blue chequer cock, ‘Bell’s Young Supreme’ and to qualify he won BIS at the RPRA Southern Region Show in November. I judged four Show Racer classes at the Region Show and John and Alice won three of them, with ‘Bell’s Young Supreme’ being one of those winners. This wonderful cock is a son of, ‘Bell’s Supreme’ the 2011 Blackpool ‘Supreme Champion’ winner and he in turn is a brother to, ‘Wild One’, the 2007 Blackpool ‘Supreme Champion’. What a fantastic family of Show Racers! The 2015/16 show season saw John and Alice enter seven open shows prior to the Blackpool show and they won six of them, including: Shildon Open Show, NEHU Open Show, Shildon BSRF Open Show, RPRA Southern Region Show, Clydesdale Open Show and SHU Open Show.
John finished with racing pigeons and concentrated solely on Show Racers in the 2006 season and won the Hurlford open show, recording his first Best in Show with his dark chequer cock, ‘Wild One’, bred from his ‘Old Silver Hen’. The following January this wonderful looking cock went to the BHW ‘Show of the Year’ at Blackpool and won ‘Supreme Champion’. Alice told me, this was the best day of their Show Racer life, to win the Supreme prize on their first attempt. It was a dream comes true! The Bell partners had three open show wins in the 2007 season, four more in 2008 and went on to win Reserve ‘Supreme Champion’ in 2009. In 2010 John and Alice had three major open show wins and so went to Blackpool with three birds in the Supreme Champion class. On entering the Winter Gardens on the Saturday morning they were amazed to see that their yearling Blue Chequer Cock had won his class and Best in Show, so was their fourth candidate in the Supreme Champion class. This cock’s nest mate won Supreme Champion and he was BIS, Reserve Supreme Champion. John told me he didn’t think this had ever been achieved before, with a nest pair winning the two premier prizes at Blackpool on the same weekend. Three of his Blackpool ‘Supreme Champions’ cocks were bred from a seven year old blue chequer cock bred by Darren Gibbons and he said, ‘it goes to prove that old pigeons can still breed champions’. John and Alice enjoyed a very successful 2011 show season, winning four open shows and qualified for the ‘Supreme Champion’ class at Blackpool in January 2012. With a lot of hard work this family of winning Show Racer has been formed from four pairs of original stock birds and the Bell partners told me it is well worth the effort when you win at the very top level with your own family of birds!
I asked John how he started up in pigeons and he told me, ‘I started with racing pigeons in 1974, at the age of nine and my first birds came from local fanciers, Eric Wilson of Mauchline who gave me two cocks and Sonny Mathieson who gave me two hens to mate to them. A year or so before that a friend of mine got some pigeons and I got hooked on them when I visited his garden. My parents agreed to allow me to keep some birds and with no experience I raced the whole young bird programme in 1975. I won my first race the following season and scored at the mighty Scottish National race from Rennes (552 miles), and I must say it was a great feeling! To breed and race birds that can race from France to Catrine, Ayrshire in the west of Scotland is a great buzz, as it is a very hard place to race pigeons too’.
John flew his birds until the 2000 season when sadly his friend and mentor, Louis Campbell, passed away. He was always keen on showing his racing pigeons and took then to events all over Scotland, where he was very successful in local and open shows. The Bell loft had four racing pigeons that had won open shows in the same year with over 500 birds competing, at that time, and qualified for the Supreme Champion of Great Britain class at Blackpool and won Reserve that year. Whenever he went to the big National shows he would spend long periods of time looking at the Show Racer and thought how great they looked. Alice used to go with John to the big shows and she also took a liking the wonderful looking show birds, so they both decided to get a few and give proper showing a go. The first Show Racers were brought in, in 2002 and quality specimens proved very difficult to obtain. He was lucky to know, Raymond Murphy of Cambuslang in Glasgow, who was a very good showman who was going out of the sport, and was having a clearance sale. John visited Raymond’s loft and purchased a five year old silver hen and her son, which was a three year old silver blue cock, both being top quality. Other birds were obtained including a young blue chequer cock from Darren Gibbons of Grimsby. In the 2002 season the ‘Old Silver Hen’ won three big open shows and her son, the silver blue cock, won two classes at open events. John and Alice went to the RP ‘Old Comrades’ where the young chequer cock won his class and went on to win the Best Young Bird at the Scottish East Region Society Show, then went forward to Blackpool to represent the Society in the BSRF class. The 2003 season saw more good success with several open show wins with racing and show birds. John told me that Alice was very instrumental in the success as she spent a lot of time with the birds and made them very tame. They responded really well to her and sit on her head and feed from her hand. John maintains making her a full pigeon partner was one of the best things he ever did, as she manages the loft when he is working, cleaning out and feeding the birds.
John told me his best show racer is his old dark chequer hen, ‘Alice’s Celtic Lass’ and she has won many premier positions including: the Hurlford Open Show, the Kingdom of Fife Open Show and the North Eastern Open Show, with over 450 birds entered. The beautiful hen has been a class winner at many open shows, even in 2014 at the age of seven, but she has been a champion in the stock section, breeding champions with different cocks each year. In the 2009 season she bread a nest pair of chequer cocks, one of them won Best in Show at the BHW Blackpool Show in 2011 and he also went on to be reserve ‘Supreme Champion’ at the same show, being beaten by his brother. The chequer cock’s nest brother won Best in Show at the North Eastern Open Show in 2010 and then won most consistent bird Scottish East Region Show Racers Society 2010 and the went to Blackpool, winning ‘Supreme Champion’ in 2011 and beating his nest mate. John said, ‘I don't think this has ever been done at Blackpool by a nest pair before. ‘Alice’s Celtic Lass’ also bread a chequer hen in 2011 and she won the Kingdom Open Show, and then went into the ‘Supreme Champion’ class at BHW Blackpool Show. The next year this hen went to Blackpool and won the Inter Society Yearly Hen Class and then went on to win reserve Best in Show. This great hen then went on to other top cards at the Blackpool Show. She bred a chequer cock in 2012 that won ‘Supreme Champion’ at the East Region Show Racer Society Show in 2013. He went on to win five firsts in the Society and was the most consistent bird award, and represented Scottish East Region in British SR Federation class at Blackpool in 2015. The champion chequer hen, ‘Alice’s Celtic Lass’, also bread a chequer cock in 2013 which won Best in Show at the North Eastern Open Show, then went into ‘Supreme Champion’ this year. As you can see she has bred champions each year with different cocks each time. Her father was a 2002 bird, with her mother being bred in 1997, so as you can see old birds can still breed champions Show Racers. ‘Alice’s Celtic Lass’ father was five years old and her mother was ten years old when I bred her and I hope she lasts as long as her mother did and still breeds champions’.
John and Alice have two 24ft x 8ft lofts, which have a nice 3ft wire flight running along the front so the birds can get out in the weather and bath, and these are cleaned out by Alice twice a day. John works long hours and says a lot of loft management is down to his partner, which includes cleaning out the lofts as many times as ten times a day on the build up to big shows. He maintains this cleaning out is very important as the birds don’t have to be lifted and pulled about to clean their feet on basketing for the shows. Alice told me that if the bird’s feet are not cleaned on basketing day they look nice and powdery and not an unnatural pink. The birds are bathed at the beginning of the week and no litter is used on the loft floors. John mixes his own corn and this has a big maple pea content, and the birds are never fed condition seed. The pigeons are never fed maize prior the going to show, as Alice maintains it makes the candidates loose and messy in the pen. The twelve pairs of birds are mated up in late February as the partners like to enter two open Society shows which are after the Blackpool show at the back end of January. No stock birds are kept as all birds are shown and about 60 young birds are bred each, which are brought down to about twelve just before the show season begins. John told me, ‘I enjoy judging and have no favourite colour, when judging or in my own loft. I just love good quality Show Racers, whatever their colour! Showing is very hard work and to get a team ready for a big National event it can take up to a month to get them right. Our best ever Show Racer is the Darren Gibbons blue chequer cock and although we don’t keep stock birds, he is our main breeder, being the sire of many winners. I’ve lost count of the many open shows he has won and he has also won several times at the RP ‘Old Comrades’ Show and the BHW Blackpool Show. I would like to finish this article by saying how important Alice’s hard work is to our good success with our Show Racers. She is a wonderful pigeon fancier’. John & Alice Bell own one of the top Show Racer lofts in the UK at this time.
At the age of 90, my good friend of over 40 years standing, Ron Lacey, finally decided too to stand down as Southern Region Show secretary a couple of years ago and it is now in the very capable hands of Peter Gretton of Brighton. Peter is used to this type of work, being the secretary of his local Federation and serving on the RPRA Southern Region committee for many years, and must say he made marvellous job of the 2018 show. But Ron being Ron and one of the workers, he could not stay away and is at the show still helping out where he can. When I say that Ron is one of the sport’s great workers, it is an understatement; he has spent a life time working for the RPRA and the sport of pigeon racing in general. Peter Gretton and his band of helper work hard every winter and put on one of the best shows I visit! We don’t seem to mention Peter’s band of stewards and workers in the annual write up, whom year in and year out work tirelessly to put this great show on. I don’t know their names, but we always ‘tip our hats’ when we meet up each November and it’s them same ol’ faces every year working so hard on this great event. Well done to you all!
I have attended most the RPRA Southern Region Shows over the past 35 years and it has always been of my favourite winter show events. One of the familiar faces I always see there is that of ‘Jock’ Price, who it seems has been there working away since the year dot! ‘Jock’ and his gang of workers put the show up and then take it down every year, and keep it running super smooth. This lovely Scotsman has been in the sport of pigeon racing for most of his life and started when he was the local pigeon ‘ace’, Bert Cusgrove’s, loft boy in 1953. He soon got his own loft of racing pigeons and flew in the Lochee Club and Dundee Federation, with great success. ‘Jock’ served ten years in the Navy, after which he moved to Littlewick Green in 1975, and joined the Maidenhead pigeon club. It was at this time that he started attending the RPRA Southern Region meetings and began working at the show, with the invitation of then show secretary, Bob Arnold. He is still a member of the Maidenhead club today and is club’s serving President.
I have been associated with the Southern Region Show for many years and have derived great pleasure judging at this great annual event through the years. This great event is one of my favourite one day shows, which is now held at the Hazelmere Community Centre, near High Wycombe. Since the show went there in 1996, the Community Centre has proved to be a first class venue for this major event, having two large halls for the show and charity pigeon auction. My good friend, Ron Lacey, former President of the R.P.R.A. Southern Region, has run the show in recent years and prior to that Val and Tony Viccars were the show secretaries. I have attended the show most years, since it started at Ascot Racecourse over 35 years ago and in recent seasons have booked the judges for the racing classes for Ron. Years ago I used to show and won many firsts with my racing pigeons, which I always considered a good achievement, with the ‘red hot’ competition at the Region show. After Ascot the show moved briefly into Basingstoke and then went to Slough for ten years, being run by the late great Bob Arnold. I always remember Bob telling me that he had been in pigeons all his life, being taken tenderly into a pigeon loft at the age of ten days old, by his father, in 1920. Bob was a wonderful man and put a lot of hard work into the Southern Region Show through his many years as show secretary. My ol’ mate, Ron Lacey, took over the job of show secretary a good few years ago from Val and Tony who had to step down because of ill health and I must say, Ron has done a brilliant job. Ron told me he was President of the R.P.R.A. Southern Region for 14 years until he had to pack up through ill health. He has been in the sport for 60 years and likes only long distance racing. Now the show is in the very capable hands of Peter Gretton, who made a wonderful start with the 2015 event.
Peter Gretton 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, but has won the Federation many times through the years. 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 saw Peter have ago at the roundabout system for the first time, 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. He is one of the sport’s workers and is secretary of the South Coast Federation and now of the RPRA Southern Region Show.
Brian Massey of Rosewell in Midlothian was one of several fanciers who made the 400 mile plus drive down from Scotland to enter birds in the RPRA Southern Region Show and was rewarded by winning ‘Best Race Bird’ on the day. The annual BHW Blackpool Show weekend is the main event in the Show Racer season and because of an ongoing Covid problem the number one pigeon show in the UK had to be canaled 2021. The Blackpool show committee put in a lot of hard work and put on a fantastic on line National event, which was a great success. The ten classes attracted an entry of 474 birds which were competing for outstanding prize money, in spite of a free entry. There was a strong Scottish dominance of the ‘On Line’ Show with both of the top awards going north of the border! The racing and showing loft of William and Brian Massey of Rosewell in Midlothian won ‘Best Opposite Sex’ in the 2021 BHW ‘Show of the Year’ with their wonderful pied hen, ‘Olivia 21’.
I asked Brian how his sport had been with recent Covid problem and he told me, ‘the 2020 season saw us win five firsts racing, Old Bird Average, Yearling Derby, Young Bird Knockout and Combine Average. When racing I believe preventative is better than cure! Mixing with birds and stress I believe it’s a must to be treating for canker and respiratory every couple weeks alternative! Any major problems get test kit and swabs, UK and German vets we use for these. Of course due to Covid we did not show in 2020 other than the online pictures, but 2019 was a great season in the show pen with eight 1st prizes at the Open shows and awards from stage being ‘Best in Show’ and ‘Best Racer’ Ayr NR Show, ‘Best Opposite Sex’ Clydesdale Show, ‘Champion Young Racer’ Fife Show, ‘Champion Young Bird’ Scottish Homing Union Show and all these shows were Blackpool qualifiers with 400 plus birds competing in the show. My most thrilling experience in the sport would be the 2015 BHW ‘Show of the Year’ and winning three firsts for me and my dad and then seeing three firsts for my son, Craig, in the young fancier, meaning we’d came down from Scotland and six birds from our loft were on the ‘Specials’ table at Blackpool. That was a buzz! In terms or showing our racers from 2010 to 2019 and last season showing with Covid, we have won the following major prizes: six times ‘Best in Show’ awards, ‘Best Opposite Sex’ NEHU Show, three times ‘Champion Young Bird’ Scottish Homing Union Show, four times 1st prize BHW ‘Show of the Year’ Show. We won many first prizes and awards but that’s the major awards for us’.
William and Brian race the roundabout system, but they lock the hens in the nest box and the only time they get out is for training flights or to race. They are boxed up with feed and water and normally keep an average of around eighteen cocks and twenty hens The training begins three weeks before racing begins and the old birds get as much in as the weather allows, trying to avoid Peregrines, but is mostly impossible, so they group train with the local lads from 12 to 45 miles. On one of these training flights they allow the yearlings to see each other when they return to try have the ‘penny dropped’ for the first race, that the rewards not just feed, but it’s the partners. The partners fly 63 to 360miles at club level and that’s their main goals at his time, but they working on trying to get some channel racing out some of the birds and that will be 440 to 560 miles! They have two lofts, a 20ft loft running along back garden and 25ft running back up the garden and they have nine sections in total. The lofts have double doors and traps on doors for entry! The partners don’t like any deep litter and prefer to just clean birds as daily as possible.
When I asked Brian about his breeding pigeons and young birds he said, ‘we have 14 pair stock pigeons and they are paired right after the Blackpool show along with race team. The stock pigeons we house are Dave Zerk from Cardiff and birds are exceptional Gaston Van De Wouwer x Greenix and they’ve hit the ground running! We’ve also got the Gaston lines from Ian Parsons, Frans Zwols Formula one lofts, but the biggest impact pigeons we’ve had the last couple seasons have been from G. W. P. McAloney of Airdrie. We breed around 80 and weaned into the darkness loft and the clocks set for 9am light to 6pm dark, giving nine hours light. They are given vaccination for PMV / Herpes / Adino when weaning along with a canker tablet over throat. I spend the first few weeks never changing the water, only topping up and every odd day I add Apple Cider Vinegar to container! They are weaned onto Marmian Variamix with added blue peas and stay on this for all of the darkness. We basket train birds for a couple days and nights with drinkers on the sides and feed tray offered. Road training them begins a good 4 to 5 weeks before young bird racing commences and I start two miles then quickly up to eight miles and I’ll keep at that point until they beat me home two times then up distance to around 30 miles maximum! I try to train as often as time or weather allows, then at least three or four times with local group trainer allowing birds to learn to break. We leave them to do as please at loft and they have access to four nest boxes and four bowls on corners and whatever takes to them can lay. I might introduce old hens to section if I feel needed! Young birds are raced from 64 miles to 270 miles with some birds being stopped along the way depending on requirements we need for future’.
Brian was born in Edinburgh in 1984, brought up in the small mining village of Rosewell Pigeons have always been in his garden with his father William having them, but his grandfather on his mother’s side was also a pigeon fancier and his mums brother is also a pigeon fancier and a previous member of the W. Massey & son partnership. Brian’s grandfather on his dads side didn’t have much to do with pigeons, but he did allow him to have a pigeon loft in his garden and Brian was in partnership with him as W. Massey and Grandson when he was 11 years old and too young to join a club as a sole member. He then I moved into keeping stock birds at granddad’s garden and joined in partnership with his father and uncle as W. B. Massey & John Mackie and this partnership lasted until around 2005 then it was William Massey & Son. Brian has had small breaks away from pigeons when he was around 19 for a couple years then he went to visit the Edinburgh International Show, as his dad informed him he had won a first. He went up on the Sunday to look and ended up leaving the show with a pair of pigeons he had purchased while there and that was me back in the hobby. In terms of racing, the best birds Brian had were the Wildermeesch birds from Ian Parsons, which were fantastic pigeons that brought great winning to the early years, but he still remember them well, especially a cock named ‘3023’. He won in the show pen in a class of over 100 birds and at that age the shows where what he enjoyed most! When he was still in school he used to pick the brain of Marshal Winter, who was a club member and raced under the name of M. D. Winter & Daughter. It was Marshal who sold Brian a pair of pigeons that took him from club shows to major Open shows and he had immediate success! Larkhall Pioneer was his first big Open success in 1999, when the two birds he bought won the Cock TW and Hen TW. These two beautiful pigeons were a pencil blue white flight cock and a blue chequer hen, and these birds were bred by a partnership in Cumbria named Todhunter and Ismay. Marshal then gave him a contact to Rodney Ismay and these are the birds that to this day are still in his pigeons now! Early years he was always more eyes on the show side for the hobby. At that age there was a fancier who sold corn from his garage named Robert “Bobby” Carruthers Bonnyrigg, whose birds always drew his attention and was lucky enough to be shown around his birds a couple occasions. The late, great Bobby was a superb distance flier from 500 to 600 miles and his old strains looked as awesome, as they did race! Brian used to enjoy the show racers condition and the fanciers Fitzpatrick, Fleming and Coutts always had superb pigeons on show at the Open events that he entered. Also a Mr John Bell, now John and Alice Bell, was one of the first fanciers he looked up to at the Open shows with the standard of their birds in the pens. He still remembers seeing those reds and thinking wow, beat this man and I’ll do plenty of winning and still true to this day! Beat John and Alice you are doing extremely well!
Brian’s wife Jennifer only shows a small interest in the birds regarding results, but she’d never go near the loft. His step son Craig was keen on them after visiting a show and he did have a couple birds for a year, resulting in Brian entering them into BHW ‘Show of the Year’ young fancier for him and he won three first prizes and ‘Best Young Fancier’ award! Brian’s daughter, Olivia likes the birds and likes to touch, but she’s jumpy when they move and isn’t keen. His son, Archie is very keen, but only just turning two years old, he walks up to loft and enters them while in garden and seems to enjoy them. Brian feels social media for pigeon fanciers should be a great tool to promote the sport, but he mostly reads negativity from comments seen! On the other hand, web sites to find info are fantastic and he spends many hours watching YouTube on racing subject! The birds of prey problem is massive and yearly worsening and he doesn’t see the end game with it.
In conclusion for this week, I would like to say thanks to Ron Lacey’s grandson, Matt Wallace, who sent me most of the great photos for this week’s article. Thanks mate! Congratulations to John and Alice Bell on their great success at the RPRA Southern Region Show once again. I can be contacted with any pigeon matters on telephone number: 01372 463480 or email me on: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT (www.keithmott.com).