“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT

Sasha Noble-Mott of Cobham 

Sasha is eight years old and is the eldest grand daughter of the British Homing World scribe Keith Mott. Keith and Betty have four grand children and none of them have ever called him granddad, and have always called him ‘bad boy’, which is some thing he can never understand why. She has a great love and affinity with the pigeons and spends most of her time in Keith’s pigeon loft, when she visits his home in Claygate. Her mother Caroline was an out standing pigeon fancier before she entered motherhood and judged at many major shows, including twice at the RPRA Southern Region Show. When Caroline was a toddler she used to pick the pigeons up in the loft and carry them around under her arm, and young Sasha has followed in her mum’s foot steps, also picked them up from the time she could walk down the garden. She loves working around the loft and has scraped out for ‘bad boy’ several times, but her favourite time of the year is the spring when the youngsters are in the nest, and she can handle and look at the fledgling in the nest bowls.

Like most youngsters, Sasha likes the white and pied pigeons, and has named every pigeon in the Claygate loft. She has owned several pigeons, with the most famous being ‘White Top’, a blue pied hen bred by Tommy Gilbertson of Carlisle and she appeared on television three times with ‘bad boy’ before being lost in a bad channel race. Her current pigeon is the Haelterman gay pied hen, ‘Sasha’s Beauty’, which was a special gift to her from ‘bad boy’s’ friends, Ced and Clive Allwright of Ashford and as a yearling in 2008, she flew well through to Bergerac (450 miles). Her nest sister is the Allwright’s good blue hen, ‘Amy, winner of 9th open NFC Guernsey and lifted ‘The Vera Allwright Memorial Cup’ as a young bird in 2007.

Although Sasha has only got an eight year old’s little hands she picks up and handles pigeons like grown up. She lives in a flat in Cobham and although there has been a lot of talk over the last few years about her having a pair of pigeons in a small flight on the balcony, it’s not really an option. So being a proper animal lover she has several Lizards which she adores and keeps in heated glass tanks in the living room. When her grand dad was chief convoyer for the London & South East Classic Club she kept asking if she could go to France with him as his assistant and maintains that she would like look after the pigeons on the road and be a convoyer one day. Sasha attends as many pigeon functions as she can and has been judging with ‘bad boy’ at the C.H.A.S.E. and RPRA Southern Region Shows. The Esher club has a young fanciers section during the racing season and she attended the prize presentation in January too pick up her race diplomas and prize money. She enjoys a day on the local lake fishing with ‘bad boy’ and has caught some good Carp, Roach and Perch. A good pigeon fancier of the future!

Tyrone Buggy of Kingston 

I recently had a very enjoyable hour at the allotment loft of ten year old Tyrone Buggy, who won a Hamworthy race in the ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-week Club at the beginning of July 2008. He won the race with his sole old bird, the black cock, ‘Ninja’, and he had raced the whole 2008 programme un-paired. The ‘Lion Brewery’ is a very hard club to win; having a big top quality membership and young Tyrone beat 145 birds to secure his first win. ‘Ninja’ was a gift ten day old youngster from Martin Penfold of Kingston and Tyrone’s mother, Sue; hand reared him to weaning age. Tyrone won £22 pools with his winner, but donated the money back in to the club funds. When I saw the Hamworthy result it was nice to see young Tyrone’s name at the top and all those premier fanciers below him. Well done mate, it was a great performance!

The lad has since done brilliantly with his little team of babies, winning 1st, 2nd Hamworthy in the ‘Lion Brewery’, 72nd open L&SECC Guernsey (1) and 39th open L&SECC Guernsey (2). His small team were raced on the natural system and trained most days from all point south on Danny Allison’s trainer wagon. Tyrone’s best young bird in the 2008 season was the black cock ‘Jekyl’, a direct son of ‘Ninja’ and he recorded 1st ‘Lion Brewery’ Hamworthy and 72nd open L&SECC Guernsey. Tyrone showed a few pigeons in the Esher open shows last winter and won several cards, including 3rd Fancy Colours (44 birds) with ‘Jekyl’. Great pigeon fancying from young Tyrone! Our Tyrone is also a keen Angler and in the 2008/9 fishing season caught his first Pike. He is quite a lad, is our Tyrone, he has been taking flying lessons for the past year or so and makes regular supervised flights out of Chobham air field. Next time he is up, I’ve told him to give his uncle Keith a phone call, so I can give him a wave as he goes over Claygate!

I had a great time on my loft visit, as I’ve known Tyrone’s parents for many years and his mum had the Bar BQ going along side the pigeon lofts. His mother is Sue Barnet, daughter of the late Kingston pigeon ace, Roy Barnet, and she has been in pigeons all her life. Tyrone’s dad is Barry Buggy and every one knows Barry! He has been in the sport since 1984 and he tells me he has won many good prizes through the years, but thinks his best performance was in 1987 when he won the Hersham Weymouth open race, with 343 birds competing. He says the London & South East Classic Club and ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-week Club have allowed Tyrone to be a full flying member subscription free, which he maintains is a great attitude to encourage young fanciers in to our sport and should be applauded. Barry and I go back to the late 1960’s when he used to come to watch my band, ‘The Impalas’, play at the ‘Search Light’ youth club in New Malden and the ‘Swan’ PH in Mill Street, Kingston. Great days!

I had a phone call this week from Barry Buggy to inform me that Tyrone’s best pigeon, the black cock ‘Ninja’, had disappeared from their allotment loft and is presumed killed by a Sparrowhawk. Black feathers were found around the loft site and it looks like he has been taken by the hawk. As Barry says, ‘thirty pigeons fly out all day on the open hole and it’s ‘sods law’ that the best pigeon is taken by a predator.

Two pigeon fanciers of the future! I’ve enjoyed this weeks article, they are two great kids. I can be contacted with any pigeon comments on Tele: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT