Keith Mott

SOME SPACE FOR THE 'OLD BOYS'

I recently received an email and photo from my good friend John Tyerman of Bracklesham Bay and I’m reproducing both in this week’s article:

“Hi Keith - I'm sending you this group photo taken recently by Chichester club member, Tony Welch, at our recent lunch at Fontwell, and hoping you might find a space in your article for us ‘old boys’. Tony races very successfully the local club and National in partnership with wife, Carol, and has been suffering some bad health in recent months. In the photo Left to Right they are, Dave Bridger, Gordon Marsh, Clive Turner, Nigel Langstaff, Fred Hall, Alasdair Muir, John Tyerman and Ian Crammond. For the past few years Ian Crammond has arranged an annual Christmas Lunch at the Spur Restaurant, near Fontwell and it gives those attending a good chance to have a drink and bit of good banter about the highs and lows of the outgoing pigeon season. This lunch was attended by eight fanciers from Surrey and Sussex. Those in attendance were Littlehampton Club member, Dave Bridger, who won the 2011 L&SECC Tarbes race with the only bird on the day. Also there were Gordon Marsh and Clive Turner who are both members of the Horsham Club, and have both won L&SECC Classic races. Both Clive and Gordon are involved with the Children's Chase Charity Show where many thousands of pounds have been raised by fanciers for this very worthwhile cause. Fred Hall from Worthing is also no stranger to success having previously won the NFC Pau and BICC National. BICC stalwart Alasdair Muir is also the winner of three Classics and was in fine form as usual. John Tyerman looked well after his recent bout of illness and he had a good year also winning the CSCFC 2011 Tarbes Classic, on the same day Dave Bridger won the LSECC Tarbes, both organisations being liberated together; very cost effective for both Clubs. Ian Crammond had not been too well of late and is due to have some heart surgery so we wish him well. As most fanciers know, Ian is in partnership with Nigel Langstaff and their wins are quite exceptional, rounding off the year by taking the first four positions in the NFC something that has never been done before. All those present have been very successful in their own right and it was a good day spent talking about pigeons and planning a trip or two to Sun City, the new Belgian Show and the spring Exchange in Holland and of course our Show of the Year at Blackpool. Regards – John”.

Left to right: Dave Bridger, Gordon Marsh, Clive Turner, Nigel Langstaff, Fred Hall, Alasdair Muir, John Tyerman and Ian Crammond.

This band of pigeon fancier friends have regular lunch meetings down on the south coast and have almost formed an unofficial ‘Southern Social Circle’. I know them all personally and all are winners of National or Classic races. Off the top of my head, here are a few lines about each of the ‘magnificent seven old boys’!

Fred Hall is not only a first class pigeon racer, winning top honours in the very best company, but is also a great worker for our sport. He was the secretary of the very large and successful Brighton & Worthing 5 bird club for several seasons and enjoyed racing in it, which was all channel racing. Fred won 1st and 2nd open BICC from the Le Ferte Bernard national in the 2004 season and twice 1st open NFC, including 1st open NFC Alencon in 2007. Fred Hall also won the N.F.C. Pau Grand National with his champion blue chequer cock, “Foxgrove Prince” in 1998. The weekend before his N.F.C. win, Fred, recorded 4th open London & South East Classic Club Pau with his blue widowhood cock, “Foxgrove Pencil”. A real purple patch! His Pau National winner was a two year old when he won and had every channel race in his build up to his Pau win. “Foxgrove Prince” was a consistent young bird, winning prizes on the darkness system and on the build up to the Pau National, had no training whatsoever. He was of the Jackson & Andrews of Yorkshire strain and was medium deep-keeled in the hand. On handling this great champion the day after he won the greatest prize in the British pigeon racing sport, the NFC Pau Grand National, I noticed he was half way up on his first flight. There were only a handful of pigeons clocked on the day from Pau and this game cock flew the 518 miles, being clocked at 18.55hrs, as black clouds and rain loomed over the south coast loft. A wonderful pigeon! Fred started in the sport in 1968, at the age of 16 and says racing then was very different to these days. He had a very successful family of Janssens and Herman pigeons for many years, but these were mostly wiped out in 1989 by a bad bout of salmonella. Fred obtained latebreds in 1993 from Jackson & Andrews and says this loft has a wonderful record, averaging 40 first prizes every season. Fred bases his widowhood system on Jackson & Andrews' system and since obtaining stock from them he has never looked back.

Alasdair Muir lives near Dorking in Surrey and is another of our best long distance fanciers! He won many premier positions in National and Classic races over many year, including: 1st open L&SECC Pau, 1st open L&SECC Bordeaux, 1st open L&SECC Angers and has been five times in the first 50 open NFC Pau in recent seasons, plus 2nd open BICC Dax in 2003 and 1st open BICC Tarbes in 2010. A real ‘master’ of the long distance! Alasdair has won two L&SECC Merit Awards. He is a past president of the L&SECC and has won a record three times 1st open, including twice in one season. He started racing in his native Scotland at the age of eight where he was helped by his father and flew in the very strong Carluke Club in Lanarkshire. He has now been in the sport over 50 years. Since moving to Surrey, Alasdair has won many major prizes in long-distance events including 1st open Pau L&SECC in 1996 with his champion blue cock, ‘Andy's Boy’. The wonderful long distance pigeon went on to win the Classic Pau Merit Award, for recording three positions in the first 50 open in the result from the longest old bird Classic race.  He is a natural racer and his team gets an open loft and regular training tosses from the south coast. He feeds a good mixture based on horse beans and his young birds only get three races then they are put on the shelf to mature.

Gordon Marsh was the Chairman and President of the London & South East Classic Club for many years and this great fancier was one of our greatest Presidents! He was born in South Wales, but only lived there for a year and has now spent most of his life, living in West Sussex. He from a racing pigeon family, his grandfather had pigeons, as did his father and both his brothers. Gordon says, he was born into pigeons and as far back as he can remember, he was always in the pigeon loft with his dad. The loft was up on 6ft. poles, with double door trapping and it had a cabin, with easy chairs and paraffin stove to make tea on. He spent hour up in his dads loft and it was in 1965 that Gordon got his own place, and started up his own loft of pigeons. His first stock came from his fathers loft in the form of a complete round of youngsters and he recalls that the late Jed Jackson gave him a really nice pied hen, which was surplus to his requirements. Gordon's first major success was with a young blue cock, which recorded 2nd club, 3rd Federation and was well up in the S.M.T. Combine result from Avranches. When I asked Gordon, who was the first fancier who drew his attention to their performances in the early days? He quickly replied, without question my boyhood hero was Jed Jackson of Worthing. He would wait outside Worthing station just to see Jed get off the bus, with his dog in one hand and his basket of birds in the other. Gordon told me, that even 50 years ago Jed was a hard man to beat and of course went on to win the Pau Grand National. Some of Gordon’s best results in recent years have been won on the roundabout system up to 300 miles and then re-pair for the long distance events. Racing his birds on this method has been very successful for the Marsh loft, having won 1st Open London & South East Classic Club (twice) and 1st Kent & Sussex Palamos BBC on this system. Gordon had the good fortune to take early retirement from work and races in partnership with his wife, Delia, who is known by many fanciers, as she started the C.H.A.S.E. Charity Show, which is run every winter at Horsham. Gordon says, she is an excellent stock woman, having spent her life with horses and can pick out a fit pigeon in the basket, and tell him which one will be the first to the loft. In the time that they have been married, they have had pigeons and she has built lofts, cleaned out lofts, trained pigeons, and taken care of them when Gordon has gone away, clocked winners, chased cats and looked good on presentation nights. Gordon says, could I ask for more? Gordon recently told me, he has had many thrilling experiences with his birds, but one of the best must be seeing his pigeon on the loft at just after six, on the day of liberation from Thurso and half an hour later seeing his hen arrive, to take 1st and 2nd club, only two birds on the day. Winning 1st Open London & South East Classic Club twice ranks highly in his most thrilling experiences category.

David & Lesley Bridger live in East Preston, on the south coast and have won the Federation and Combine many times flying both North and South road in their 50 years in the sport. All David’s pigeon friend call him David ‘long distance’ Bridger, but he tells me he enjoys all racing long and short, but gets his big ‘buzz’ from racing long distance. The Bridger loft has won premier positions in the Federation, Combine, Classic and National through the years and in one young bird inland race took the first sixteen positions in the Federation. Not bad for premier long distance racer! One of the partner’s best performances was from Thurso (551 miles), when they timed on the day to win 1st Club, 1st Federation and 1st Combine winning an RPRA award for the best individual performance for a bird flying the north route over 450 miles.

In 2011 the London & South East Classic Club held it Tarbes ‘Blue Riband’ race at the back end of June and last season’s 560 mile event turned out to be a very tough affair. One game pigeon was clocked on the day on the south coast and was owned by a delighted David Bridger! His Classic winner was his beautiful three year old pencil blue pied hen ‘Pipi’ and she flew the 524 mile race, being sent sitting 12 day old eggs. She is paired to one of David’s premier racing cocks, ‘The Star’, winner of several premier positions including 1st Federation Messac and 6th Federation Yelverton. Two weeks after the Tarbes Classic, Peter Taylor and I made the 50 mile drive down to the south coast to visit Dave and Lesley and to see their champion pied hen, ‘Pipi’. We picked a beautiful July day for the visit and the Bridger’s wonderful garden was in full bloom. David told me Lesley is the gardener and I must say she certainly knows her job, the garden looked magnificent! On our arrival at Bridger’s home, we sat and had tea in their back conservatory, and I began by asking David if he had enjoyed his Tarbes success and he replied, ‘Being asked to have a report on my loft following my win from the London & South East Classic Club Tarbes is by far the biggest honour that I have had in nearly 50 years of racing. I have in the past had the only bird on the day in the club from Thurso 551 miles, timed from both Thurso and NFC Pau on the same day and have been 1st Club, 1st Federation, 1st Combine Thurso and 1st Club, 2nd Federation, 2nd Combine from Thurso, but nothing tops the feeling I had when timing my London Classic Club bird on the day from Tarbes flying 524 Miles 587 Yards at 9.33pm. The icing on the cake was when I received a telephone call from the Classic Club Secretary, Terri Hoskin, to inform me that it was the only bird timed on the day. As I live on the south coast only about half a mile from the sea shore it was obvious to me that I could have been beaten into first place because birds flying further up country need only to be timed early next morning and I would have lost on hours of darkness combined with birds having to fly a further distance. Fortunately for me the rain that had set in around 20.00hrs on the day of liberation, kept up through the night and did not ease off until about 07.00hrs on the Saturday morning. This put paid to any early second day birds but it was not until about lunch time of the second day that the provisional result was put on the Classic Club’s web site which confirmed that Lesley and I had won 1st SW Section and 1st Open. I have never lost any sleep over winning the Club, Federation or Combine but I certainly did that night’.

Ian Crammond and Nigel Langstaff of Fontwell have a loft full of quality and have recorded several premier wins in National and Classic races recently to back it up. Winners of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th NFC in the 2011 season, 1st open BICC, 1st open L&SECC (three times) in recent seasons and several Section A winners in the NFC, including three times 1st section in 2011. Ian Crammond has been in the sport 60 years and tells me the partners have several families going well at the present time including the M. & D. Evans / Vandenabeele, Peter Van Osch and Emil Dennys. He has had his present loft set up at Fontwell about 15 years and has taken Nigel on as a full pigeon partner in recent seasons. Ian can’t praise Nigel enough, saying he is first class pigeon man and is mostly responsible for their outstanding racing success in the 2008 / 9 / 10 / 11 seasons.  Ian likes the continental families of pigeons, with going over to Belgium and Holland obtaining top class birds being a big part of his hobby, which he joys as he has made some good friends of fanciers from over the English Channel. When he goes out to obtain new stock he always goes to lofts that are winning consistently with very big birdage in the National and Combine races. Ian says years ago he enjoyed long distance racing and did not mind waiting several days to clock a bird from Spain, but these days he only likes one day racing, up to about 550 miles. The partner’s race 120 cocks on the widowhood system and these racers are split in to two teams, one for sprint to middle distance and the other for long distance. The racers are not broke down, being fed on a good widowhood mixture and the two teams are trained separate and flown out around the loft separate. Nigel likes racing out to places like Bordeaux and Saintes, but his ambition is to win 550 miles National race. The partner’s long distance loft is the focal centre of the magnificent set up and Ian calls it ‘master control’. It is about 50ft long, with a corridor where the birds trap into off landing boards and all the nest boxes are self cleaning, with the fronts being colour coded to each section. The loft has a closed in front with Perspex windows, an office to keep all pigeon records, a roomy full length flight at the rear for the widowhood hens and all clocking is on ETS. Ian says the long distance loft is the product of many year of work altering it to get it right. The sprinting widowhood cocks are housed in 50ft loft with a pan tiled roof, open door trapping and is totally closed in. Ian’s pride and joy is his magnificent stock loft and flights, which house over 100 pairs of breeders that have been obtained from the very best continental champions over the years. The partners like to pair the stock birds up early in the year and each family has it own section in the loft.

Clive Turner of Capel is one of the top flyers in the L&SECC in the 2011 season, including winning 1st & 4th open Alencon. Clive’s successful Staf Van Reet and Busschaert pigeons have won many firsts in the very strong Horsham club and 1st Federation also in 2011. A wonderful record! The London & South East Classic Club got the new 2011 season off to a great start in early May, when the members entered 1,811 birds in the Alencon race. For several days before the race, according to the early weather reports, it looked like it was going to be a good race and it proved to be so, with Rube Johnson liberating the convoy at 09.15hrs in to a light South East wind. The Classic’s transport manager, Clive Turner of Capel, won the race by a ‘country mile’ and also took 4th open just for good measure! It was very pleasing to see Clive win this Classic as he is a great worker for our club, maintaining and garaging the L&SESS transporter at his yard near Dorking. The Turner pigeon set up consists of three very smart lofts, with a back drop of the beautiful Surrey countryside, and Clive races 30 cocks on widowhood, with the back up of 12 pairs on the roundabout system. He likes all racing, but prefers regular Saturday Federation racing and says he doesn’t race every week as he has 13 grand children and he likes to spend time with them in the summer months. The racers are paired at the end of January and are fed on a good widowhood mixture. Clive tells me he breaks the racing cock down during the season, but for a shorter period on the Continental events and has always practiced this method, even when he raced natural many years ago. Generally the cocks don’t see their hens on marking night, but get their mates on their return home, with the duration depending on how hard the race has been. The racers are trained prior to the first race, but never during the season and are exercised around the loft for an hour twice a day, and raced regularly to keep them fit.

The highlight of the 2011 racing season for me was to see my good friend, John Tyerman, win the Central Southern Classic Flying Club’s longest old bird race from Tarbes. Johnny has not enjoyed good health over the last couple of years, which has created a worrying and distressing time his wife Linda and his family in general. I’m happy to say he back in some good form now. He has spent a life time working for our sport, most of the time at the detriment of his own pigeons and for Betty and me to see him win the CSCFC ‘blue Riband’ race in such great style was the great thing this season!

I recently asked John about his Tarbes success and he told me, ‘the Tarbes Classic birds were liberated at 07.00hrs into a North West wind and although weather conditions were favourable in France the south coast evening forecast was not good, as a weather front was predicted to move from the Atlantic into the English Channel. This turned out to be the case, with heavy rain, bad light and poor visibility from around 18.00hrs and indeed it was just like a winter evening, certainly not what you would expect in mid-summer. With the adverse weather and poor light I did not think there would be any day pigeons, and as I sat in my conservatory with the rain hitting the windows. I suddenly saw a bird come off the English Channel and land on top of the loft, and realised it was my blue hen. The light was so bad I had to put the loft interior lights on to coax her in and she was timed at 20.25 hrs. She was a bit wet but seemed none the worse for her long fly and was keen to get into her nest box and her mate. My winner was a two year old blue bar hen that was flown on a celibacy system, mainly due to the fact that I had been quite ill and it seemed easier to do this rather than have hens laying all the time. Normally I do fly on the natural system so flying the sexes parted was relatively new to me, but I found they exercised well and seemed much fitter. My winning hen now named "Brackbay Star” had been paired in early March and after rearing two youngsters was parted to fly the celibacy system. As a young bird she was not raced, but as a yearling she flew several races north with the Southampton North Road Federation as far as Ripon. Then prior to winning Tarbes she raced Leicester, and was then was turned south across the Channel to Fougeres and Tours. I should explain that my loft is only about 100 metres from the English Channel and normally the bird’s dog-leg back along the coast to me, which loses time, but on this occasion she came straight off the sea, when visibility was very poor indeed. Most fanciers don’t appreciate how difficult it can be for Channel pigeons, which are often faced with strong winds, heavy seas and poor visibility over the last 100 plus miles from France to the UK mainland, but living close to the sea I often marvel at how they manage to do it.  The winning hen is a grand-daughter of my Barcelona Cock who was 5th and 7th BICC Barcelona (661 miles) and also 15th BICC Perpignan International. He in turn is a double grandson of my good hens "Rainbow Lady" and "Dorking Supreme", both outstanding distance pigeons, from my old Carmichael/Kirkpatrick family. There were three other gallant pigeons clocked that night from Tarbes and all flying over 500 miles, so my congratulations to these other fanciers for an outstanding performance on a difficult flying day’. John Tyerman and I have been good friends for many years! He was a founder member and a great committee worker for the L&SECC for many years until he moved to Bracklesham Bay, and was the Classic’s President for three years. John served on the NFC committee for nine years and at the time of penning this article has been elected as 2012 President of the BICC. Congratulations to John on his appointment! There you have it, a bit of space for the ‘Magnificent Seven’ old boys!