Keith Mott
London & South East Classic Club “Forum”
2008 Guernsey (2) Classic
Doesn’t time fly; this was my fifteenth and last visit to Guernsey with the L&SECC pigeons! I’ve had eight good years convoying for our great classic club and think it’s time to call it a day. I love the convoying, but can’t take all the agro that goes with it any more! There are several reasons why I’m packing up, but let’s forget about all that rubbish and look forward to the future, and enjoy some good pigeon racing. I did have two other invitations to convoy in the 2009 season, including an official offer from a National club, but if I wanted to convoy next year it would be for the London & South East Classic Club! I hope to carry on with my committee work and writing for the classic club in the future, but most of all, I hope to get back to racing my pigeons properly again. In the last two seasons that I’ve been back convoying for the classic I’ve not hardly won a prize with my birds, spending all my pigeon time convoying, writing or doing some other official pigeon work, with very little time spent in the garden with my own birds. I did have a couple of little successes with the young birds this season, including a first from Yeovil in the mighty Esher club and won the loft knock out! The Esher club were Three Borders Federation champions again in the 2008 season and you will be reading a lot on this page about the Esher champions in the coming weeks! At the time of writing this article, I can’t be certain as the last race was only two days ago, but I think Bob and Danny Carter are the Three Borders Federation individual points champions for 2008. More news on that later! My main interest is still in racing my Eric Cannon and Brian Denney pigeons in the long distance events, but have obtained some good birds off my good friends, Ken O’Connor and Keith Arnold, this year to have a go at the shorter National and Classic races as well. My Yeovil winner, ‘Foxwarren Kick Start’, was bred from two direct R. & K. O’Connor stock birds and is a grand daughter of Champion ‘Batman’ (5 times 1st Federation) and Champion ‘Roman Nose’ (4 times 1st Federation). We are up and running!
As I previous reported on the first Guernsey classic in August, I was a bit surprising to find the Guernsey liberation site in such a bad state on this visit. There was graffiti sprayed on the wall, old pallets and ply board thrown around the car park, and the playing field was like a lunar landscape. The football pitches were a sea of mud and every blade of grass was gone! I was told they had a big music festival there on a rainy day recently and the beer tents and the 7,000 people who attended coursed thousands of pounds of damage to the site. On my second visit to the Guernsey liberation site in September I was happy to see the grass had started to grow back on the playing field. The lads told me it has cost a lot of money to put the damage right and the youth football teams who use the pitches regularly may not be able to use it until next season.
On the day before marking we drop the baskets off at the marking stations and on our arrived at the South Ockendon marking station Derek Packer gave us the bad news that our Rita had suffered her second heart attack and had been admitted into hospital.
She told me recently that she has been under a bit of stress lately and I’m told she had her attack in the ambulance on her way to hospital. She is always up for a laugh and every body thinks the world of her at the South Ockendon marking station. She is the ‘backbone’ of the marking station, one of the sports workers and I’m very happy to report that she is alright and back at home now! We all wish her a full recovery very soon! With this being my last race as chief convoyer for the L&SECC, I was over whelmed by the many farewell and thank you hand shakes I received at the marking stations. It was a bit sad really! The L&SECC has a wonderful band of hard workers at all the marking station and with out them the classic would cease to operate. Thanks once again too a few of the lads at Leatherhead who helped in the pouring rain with the load of the 70 baskets there, including Amin Khan, Barry Buggy and Bobby Besant. We all got soaked!
I don’t know how many ferries I’ve been on to cross the English Channel in my eight years as convoyer for the classic, but I would say this Guernsey race saw me have one of my roughest crossings, with the winds being gale force through the night. On our arrival at St. Peter Port in Guernsey we were detained by the customs because Condor Ferries had messed up with our paper work and we were put in their compound in spite of my protests that I had 1,800 pigeons on the lorry and they needed to go to the liberation site to be watered. They wanted to lock me in the compound, but I insisted that the gate was kept open so there was no problem with my exit from the docks when they released me. I was very unhappy with the ignorant man that was there waiting for me on the dock when I drove off the boat, the pigeons are my responsibility and paper work was Condor’s, so why should my race be put in jeopardy because of their silly mistake. The Guernsey port is not busy like Portsmouth and as so as the boat is loaded and sailing again, every body goes home to bed and the place goes in to total close down, with no one to chase for my release. By 06.00hrs I had, had enough and called in my good friend, Albert Harley, to sort out the situation. I drove out of the dock and we watered the birds on arrival on site at 06.45hrs and it was nice to see lots of heads come out to the troughs for a drink. It was a nice morning, with sunshine, blue sky with broken clouds and a strong south west wind at the car park liberation site. Just like our first Guernsey classic this season, the early weather reports suggested a hold over, but Steve and I put our heads together and found a good window in the weather to produce an excellent race. I telephoned Steve Appleby in Guildford, at 06.00 hrs and he informed me that the line of flight looked good apart from heavy rain showers in the channel. I rang him a second time at 07.00hrs and the showers were then only light and I anticipated that with the very strong south west wind these would not bother the birds on their homeward journey. We cut the strings and liberated at 07.50 hrs and the 1,800 plus birds in the convoy cleared Guernsey instantly. I gave our secretary, Peter Coles, a phone call before boarding the Portsmouth bound Ferry late that afternoon and he informed me that early reports on the race were very good, with the birds making a classic record braking velocity of 2308 ypm and returns were also very good.
Peter and Kathy Foreman of Horsham won the young bird classic (1,590 birds) with their little natural hen, ‘One For Ralph’, and when the birds have moulted out I hope to catch up with the partners for a full loft article. Paul Arnold of North Cheam won the old hens classic (223 birds) with his fantastic Staf Van Reet widowhood hens and provisionally looks like being 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th open. Brilliant pigeon flying by both winners! Paul Arnold has been a premier pigeon racer in the Surrey area for many years and I’m amazed that we had never met until last Sunday, when he came to my Claygate home to have his hens photographed for his forth coming article. He is a great lad and we had a great chat about our sport, which lasted for nearly four hours. He is a very interesting fancier to talk to, as he is very knowledgeable about racing and breeding pigeon and has some very strong view about the sport. That is certainly one future article to look forward too! Paul sent 14 hens in brilliant condition to Guernsey and had two drop together, clocking his first bird at 10.01hrs. His Guernsey classic winner was his yearling widowhood Staf Van Reet blue chequer pied hen, ‘The 27 Hen’, and she recorded 44th open in the first Guernsey classic in August. The hen that I was most impressed with was the beautiful red chequer Staf Van Reet ‘26’ and she has been a member of Paul’s widowhood hens team for the last two seasons, recording 2007: 2nd open L&SECC Guernsey (OH), 6th open L&SECC Guernsey (OH), 2008: 3rd open L&SECC Guernsey (OH). She is one brilliant hen! The Arnold loft also recorded 8th open provisionally in the young bird Guernsey classic and Paul tells me that pigeon has gone on and won 1st club Yelverton. Paul Arnold’s article, with photos of his great Staf Van Reets will appear in the next couple of weeks.
Many thanks’ to Caroline and Steve Appleby, who did a great job on this our last race of the season. A big ‘thank you’ to every one at home and abroad, for their help this season. I’ve really enjoyed it! Congratulations to the Esher & Dist. RPC for being Three Borders Federation champions again in the 2008 season. Well done lads! I can be contacted on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!
TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.