“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT

The Brain Tumour Charity Presentation

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 the then show secretary, Bob Arnold. He is still a member of the Maidenhead club today and is club’s serving President.

The RPRA Southern Region show and pigeon auction have donated thousands of pounds to charity over the last 35 years and one of the charities this time was the Brain Tumour Charity, which is based at Farnborough in Hampshire. ‘Jock’ and his wife, Liz, lost their dear daughter a few short years ago to a brain tumour and they were happy with the decision to donate to the charity from the 2015 show. ‘Jock’ and Liz were presenting the £500 cheque at the Brain Tumour Charity head office in Farnborough and he asked if I would like to come along and take some pictures for the fancy press. Goes without saying, I was more than happy to attend and enjoyed meeting Liz and the Charity staff. I was told that the founders of the Bain Tumour Charity, Neil and Angela Dickson, were awarded MBE’s for their services to the brain tumour community in July 2015. Neil and Angela founded the Samantha Dickson Research Trust eighteen years ago following the death of their 16 year old daughter from a brain tumour. The charity became the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust, which later merged with Brain Tumour UK and The Joseph Foote Trust to create The Brain Tumour Charity. The charity maintains, over 9,300 people are diagnosed with a primary brain tumour every year. We remember all those who have lost their life to brain tumour and those who have lost family and friends. The charity has ‘Supporter Groups’ which are a wonderful way to bring friends, family and colleagues together to fundraise in memory of, or inspired by, a loved one. Each group is committed to fundraising on an ongoing basis and is supported by a dedicated team every step of the way.

Peter Gretton is now running the RPRA Southern Region Show and his band of helpers work hard every winter and put on one of the best shows I visit! We do 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 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 Hazlemere Community Centre, near High Wycombe. In recent years 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 30 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 has made a wonderful start with the 2015 event.

The month of November 2015 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 be back at the Southern Region Show after a season lay off from judging because of my ‘dodgy knees’ problem. I had five great classes of pigeons to judge and picked a wonderful Show Racer blue chequer cock from my yearlings class to be the best pigeon I handled that day and he then went on to win Best in Show for John and Alice Bell of Catrine in Ayrshire. A very satisfying result for me personally, as the Supreme Champion owned by Brian and Caroline Seward at the Duchy Show the weekend before was also one of my class winners! This year’s show held at the Hazlemere Community Centre turned out to be one of the best ever, with 480 birds entered. The entry for this wonderful event was from all over the UK, including Scotland, Wales and the Channel Islands, and several of the judges commented on high the standard of the birds entered was. There was the usual auction of gift birds and the funds raised by the show and sale was donated to the Brain Tumour Charity and the Hampshire Air Ambulance.

John and Alice Bell of Catrine in Scotland 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 four times and have been runner up four times! This latest success has finished off a wonderful 2015/16 show season for them, when they have won several premier shows. This 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.

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT (www.keithmott.com)