The Up North Combine
Pigeon Racing in The North East of England
 
 
 

   
Thursday Sep 09

Life in The UNC Part 3

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Don’t get me wrong. Women are not barred from my loft set-up at all. It is not some kind of male bastion against womanhood in general. It’s just that not many women, hardly any really, Heather apart, bother to come. Heather is something else. She is a regular, though not frequent, visitor. My hard-bitten fancier sidekicks are a treat to watch when she appears. She is extremely kind-hearted and loves all animals. Especially pigeons. If they are lame, blind or infirm, so much the better. Were I to come back in another guise, in another life, I would want to be a pigeon looked after by Heather! I would have a life of luxury and die of old age. For certain!

We both worked for Newcastle University. Me in Physiology and Heather as a secretary in the School of Chemistry and took early retirement at about the same time. But I had known her long before that. Her pigeons, with one exception, a retired racer, are pure bred street pigeons. Collected from beneath motorway bridges or picked up in some gutter. Usually badly injured or very young birds newly fallen from their nests. It is nothing unusual for her to stop a stream of motorway traffic in a major city to save one of these birds from being squashed!

All of her pigeons have names. "Vulcan." "Squidgy Baby." "One-Wing" (it has two) etc. Even the retired racer is named after the person who gave her to Heather. They reside in a purpose-built shed, complete with aviary. Also in an outside toilet. And on a shelf in the garage. They live long and well. If attention is required they are brought to me. Sometimes accompanied by a photo-album detailing their progress. The boys love it and go straight into their best behaviour mode! Ever so polite. And no swearing! There is, I think, genuine amusement on both sides. With Heather playing up to them and the boys gently mocking and teasing her. It is good to watch.

It is nothing for her to wait hours for me to come home late at night. So that I can look at a newly-fledged thrush. She hand fed the last, one every hour or so, for two weeks. Before accidentally standing on it! Life can be cruel! Deaths amongst her birds are accompanied by full state funerals. With all due honours. Culling is a not an option. Full stop. I cut their toe nails. Clip wings. And carry out regular inspections on them. Much to the amusement of my cronies. Who sit there muttering scurrilous and totally unfounded insinuations, about just what kind of relationship Heather and I might have had in the past. Just loud enough for me, but not so loud that she can hear! It is, of course, all lies. Ask my wife. On second thoughts perhaps that’s not such a good idea!

There are times, though not a lot of them, when I have the loft and cabin to myself. And those I enjoy. I quite like my own company and am happy doing a crossword and listening to classical music. Or simply doing nothing at all. I earned my living for 42 years by sorting out other people’s problems. Being thoroughly harassed in the process. Those days are gone. I once worked with a rather eccentric postgraduate student who spent most of his day just looking at a wall. On which was a poster showing a three-legged stool and the caption "Some days I sit and think, some days I just sit." Some days I too just sit. Many of the reactions to my choice of reading -matter have made me so paranoid that I now switch the radio off and hide the newspaper when any local fancier arrives. It is a regional thing. Peculiar to the North East. Which newspapers you read. What music you are partial to. And so on.

I once and only once, a long time ago, made the mistake of coming into the pigeon club carrying an umbrella. I could not have got a more raucous reception if I had walked in with no trousers on! The wearing of suede shoes. Horse-riding. Ballroom dancing. All seem to elicit the same response. Many years ago one of the boys, a coal-miner, was seen sneaking into a local school of dancing on a Saturday afternoon together with his wife. Naturally he kept absolutely mum about this. But of course word got around. And how. He walked into the pigeon club, carrying his clock, the following Friday and was confronted by at least seven pairs of unshaven pigeon men, still in their work clothes, all waltzing around the floor. Studiously avoiding his gaze. Needless to say he still can’t dance!

Peter is not a pigeon man although he does feed about 30 street pigeons every day. Twice a day. They eat more corn than his chickens do. And are a complete nuisance on race days or when I am settling youngsters. We call them "Peters Pigeons." Peter lives in a caravan (not far from my old loft) on his smallholding. Which rejoices in the name of "The Funny Farm."It is a bit like Noah’s Ark. There is a Muscovy duck called Boris, chickens, rabbits, horses, several cats, the odd stray dog and "Tinkerbelle" the goat. Peter is well read. A good carpenter and an excellent gardener. He leads a pretty self-sufficient life and despite being in receipt of an old age pension he fairly recently completed a three year gardening course at Newcastle University! He is, in short, nobody’s fool. All his spare money is spent on books, seeds and at the local flea-market where he buys Victorian gardening implements for his collection. He loans me his books after he has read them. I am now an expert on the Second World War. The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. And Jack the Ripper. Peter has eclectic tastes! He also prone to inspirational, though totally impracticable, ideas.

I forgot to mention earlier that he also has a donkey. Jenny. One Christmas time Peter had an idea. He would wash and groom her. Put a white blanket over her back. Hang two white pillowcases full of presents on her like panniers. One on either side. Then take her to visit the local children. It was an amazing sight. A flat -backed coal wagon with two scaffolding boards running from the rear to the ground. Peter on the wagon pulling for all he was worth. At a donkey that obviously wasn’t going anywhere! Despite the presence of his wife at the other end. Shoving for all she was worth too! As he said to me later "If Jesus Christ had been waiting for this bloody donkey he’d still be in Jerusalem!" He has worked on farms. Owned a coal business and worked with horses all his life. He was hugely amused when someone described him as a recluse. He is a character in a world short of characters. A man who is doing exactly what he wants to do and is happy doing it. Now is that not an enviable position to be in?

We work hard at the social side of the sport in South Shields. "Those who play together, stay together" kind of thing. As well as it being a clearing house for information on who is doing what with whose pigeons and where, or what diseases are in which areas, it acts as a place where we organise outings to meetings, major shows like Blackpool, one-day events and Up North Combine dinners. Where we have a standing order for 24 tickets but always need more. And occasionally there are visits to the local greyhound stadium. My contemporaries are well-informed about pigeon ailments and how to deal with them. Some have their own microscopes and nearly all do not treat if they don’t have to. And even then preferably on an individual and not a flock basis.

They regard, as I do, the possession of pigeon medicines as a form of insurance. If the expiry date is reached and the product goes in the dustbin, then it was money well spent. Because the birds were healthy enough not to have needed anything. But had they been sick the remedy would have been ready to hand. And little racing would have been lost. Otherwise, by the time professional veterinary advice had been sought and the appropriate medicine obtained, a full years racing could have evaporated. In the UK it is a lucky man who has a veterinarian who knows anything about pigeons in his area. They do exist and should be consulted, but there are just not that many of them about.

We got to talking about little fishes in little ponds. Big fishes in little ponds. And big fishes in big ponds. We were, of course, talking about Club, Federation and National racing. And about a particular fancier’s intended movement towards long distance racing. It is a long slow haul. Where patience is the watchword. We talked about stock birds as well. And agreed that these should not simply be birds that are not racing. Birds that are merely kept in the stock loft. As is often the case. They should be progeny-tested producers of good winning pigeons. A true stock bird is nothing less than that. There are not a lot of them about. Despite what is written in the fancy press!

ROD ADAMS.
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Which soccer team you support largely depends on where you live or in my case where you have worked for most of your life. Pigeons and football go hand in hand. The thinking is like this, if you are flying badly and your team is playing well, talk about football. If you are flying well and your team is playing badly, talk about pigeons. Particularly your own! If you are flying well and your team is playing well you are laughing, but if you are flying badly and your team is playing badly don't argue. Keep a low profile. And listen!

My contribution to the discussion came about through watching my young birds. They fly hard, being away from the loft for about an hour. I always keep a small drinker on the gantry for any returning lost pigeons and my youngsters were drinking it dry. As soon as they dropped. Consider this. The weather was hot and humid. They only flew for one hour. They had water in the loft before they went out. What would they have needed to negotiate a race in those conditions? And what could the Convoyer have done about that? Precisely nothing, that's what! His job ends upon the release of the birds. Our Convoyer always says he can make water available to the birds at all times, but he can't make them drink. They are not yours when they are in the sky. Dehydration on hot days is a bigger problem than we realise.

There is this theory about training that you should always train in the morning or the afternoons, never at night, because the birds are racing during the day and not in the evenings. This ignores the fact that some people still have to go to work in these parts, not a lot of them mind you, and have no choice about when they train. But it is a plausible hypothesis and it has it's pros and cons. I train in the evenings, by choice, because there are less birds in the sky, but do they learn less because they are homing together and not breaking from batches? Is it safer? It's a bit like always training in the direction that you race from. Does it make them better because they know the course? Or is it better to train in all directions to make them think? Do they need to work against the wind? You pays your money and you takes your choice!

Saturday and the birds were eventually held over, which didn't really bother anyone because none of the other local organisations were up either. Besides, the North Road men whom we knew that had liberated, hadn't fared well. And we had a local air show to contend with! On Sunday you could feel the frustration creeping in amongst the local fanciers as we sat in the sunshine waiting for news of the weather to improve at the race-point. Barely 80 miles away! Time dragged on and word filtered through, incorrectly as it happened, of other liberations and then that ours were coming back home on the transporter. I had none away and personally thought that the Convoyer, (who would obviously have access to much more information than me) was making a difficult but informed decision and that time would prove him right, but I could understand the frustration of those fanciers competing in the race. Sitting in the sun and twiddling their thumbs.

Convoyers are frequently in a no-win situation. I don't envy them their jobs and would never do it in a million years. I have made the observation before that very few Convoyers retire of old age. They either resign or get sacked! It truly is a thankless job. As a postscript, the birds returned in excellent condition and no liberation would have been possible. In an ideal world Convoyers would receive basic training in meteorology. Be provided with and trained in the use of computer-generated weather programmes. Possess lap-top computers. Satellite phones etc. Lists of contacts etc.They should not just be someone from the ranks doing the job as best they can because nobody else will do it. It will cost money of course, but what is the true cost of a "smash" race? And I don't just mean in lost revenue. We have to be seen doing our best for our birds as our sport comes under increasing scrutiny from others with conflicting, but equally valid, interests.

In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. I have no veterinary qualifications. What I know about sick and injured pigeons is the result of over 50 years of keeping them and 42 years of work in a Medical School. Things rub off on you, if you are in contact with them long enough. Communication is the key. Pigeon men have to talk to each other. There are very few secrets these days. We keep our pigeons healthy, here in the North-East, by swapping what information we have with each other. About what we know and don't know. What we have seen before or not seen before. What we have read or been told about. And it works well. Knowing when, how, and where to get specialist advice and/or treatment is very important. Seeing trouble early is the key. Any parent with eyes in their head knows their child is sickening for something long before the first physical sign of illness appears. And pigeon men are highly observant. Nearly everyone has decent pigeons these days, but they must be healthy. We pretty much all feed well and train well. The winners undoubtedly have class. It figures they are exceptionally healthy too.

I learned my trade from a fancier who was a man ahead of his time. Who set the standards for sprint racing in my Federation. Maybe even in the North-East. He was a relentless racer and trainer. If they came poorly they got more work. More training. More races. Let me tell you about a pigeon called "Whiplash." He got his name because of the way he dropped in from exercise and races. Always hanging high and vertical above the open door, then swooping down with a loud clap, clap, of his wings. Not unlike a whip being cracked. "Whiplash" was already a star, having won four or five races, when he went to a 230 mile race and was missing on the night. I let him in mid-morning the next day as his owner had to go to work. Back he went the following week to a 290 mile race. And was again missing on the night, appearing about lunchtime on the Sunday. The following week was the first cross- channel race. About 350 miles. "Whiplash" went back. On the Monday morning, long after his owner had left for the shipyards I saw him on the step. All huddled up and looking thoroughly sick. I let him in yet again.

It was high time, I felt, that this fancier got some advice from me. A complete novice! So I gave him my unwanted opinion. I told him, with all the confidence and arrogance of youth, that if he didn't stop racing the pigeon he would lose it. The man never said a word. The next Saturday was a 290 mile race, yet again. We got a stiff one. Of about 8 hours as I remember it. And"Whiplash" murdered our Federation. Oh I knew which pigeon it was alright when he came. He hadn't got his name for nothing. But there was nowhere for me to hide. My garden wasn't big enough! Once again the owner never said a word. His hand gesture said it all! His name by the way was Tommy Burke.

I buy a lot of my feeding direct from the farm. Beans, peas, wheat, barley and linseed. Besides being cheaper, all corn starts it's life on a farm somewhere. A friend came to see me last night to see if he could arrange a joint purchase of beans with me. He intends to feed his young birds differently next season in an attempt to avoid the so-called young bird sickness. His idea is that by hopper feeding beans the youngsters will never be completely full nor completely empty. And he will be able to avoid the pit-falls of twice a day feeding , where some youngsters are over-full due to being missing or late off tosses, whilst others have not eaten enough because the hopper has been taken out early in an attempt to stop the over- feeders being over fed!

It is a particularly difficult period in which to try to synchronise your feeding. And if you have youngsters of different ages in the batch, over- feeding could well be a contributory factor to the vomiting. Control of feeding might be a problem, but there are ways around this. We also discussed the regulation of the loft temperature. In effect the separation of heat and light. A lot of the modern lofts being built do not recognise this distinction and let light in at the expense of the loft getting too hot, because of the nature of the materials being used. The kind of sheeting used in conservatories for example lets light in, no problem, but also can overheat the loft. There is or should be, a balance between heat, light, and ventilation for every design of loft. In every sort of environment. Which also takes into account the numbers of pigeons being housed. It isn't easy and is mostly achieved by trial and error here in the North East. In some countries there are professionals making a living out of this.

A few of us once watched an eclipse of the sun from my back garden. Using pinhole cameras and other methods. And were duly impressed, especially with the corona and the temperature drop. My young birds however were not impressed at all They went out at 9.15 am. and the bulk were back by 11 am. About six came back half an hour later and the remaining dozen or so not until well after noon! The seagulls and the swifts were circling very, very, high just prior to the eclipse starting. My youngsters have never been away that long before, so was it a direct effect of what was happening or just pure chance? I can hardly wait for the next one!

Rod Adams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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