Fifty years ago, this month, there was I, just having completed my National Service and experiencing my first breeding season with the lovely Oriental Frill.

Anxious to get them into a showpen as soon as possible, I took them along to a show staged by the King's Lynn Fur & Feather Society, of which Club I had been a member for some five years or so. The show was held in the Royal Grounds of Sandringham in Norfolk in a marquee.

The entry fee was 2/- (10p) and the prize money was 10/- (50p), 6/- (30p) and 3/- (15p), paid out on five entries and above.

Just to put things into today's perspective, that entry fee would now be well over £4 and the prize money would be in the region of £40 per class! There were 19 classes for Fancy Pigeons and the judge was a Norfolkman, Dr C G Taylor.

I do not have a record of the number of entries, nor of the winners but I am confident in saying that I didn't get a first prize as my competitor would be Ken Shaw, who is still the man to beat in Frills, 50 years on. This may have been the year I pedal-cycled to the show from my home, 21 miles away with a box containing two pigeons balanced on my handlebars - I certainly remember doing that very thing - and the after effects! I regularly visited that show until 1984, which was the very last time we were obliged to print on a pigeon show schedule - 'by Gracious Permission of Her Majesty the Queen'.

That is, until 2004!

Yes, 20 years on, we were back to printing that once again at the top of a pigeon show schedule.

On 26 and 27 June, that same old King's Lynn Fur & Feather club was back in a marquee with the Royal House and the Church in the background at Sandringham Country Show.

Fine weather, particularly on the second day, resulted in vast crowds visiting the event and we had a continuous stream of visitors to the fur and feather marquee on both days, many showing a great deal of interest in our pigeons.

Saturday was show day with 115 entries, judged by Pat Pratt, whom we were very pleased to see, particularly as we had dragged him away from an event down in his home patch that weekend. Thanks again Pat.

Best in Show was a 2004 bred, Old Dutch Capuchine, shown by Finlay Bye and Claire Walker - two trophies, including a permanent one we have had donated to us by the now defunct, East Anglian Fancy Pigeon Club.

Best Flying Pigeon was one of Malcolm Smith's Wests and a large VPC entry was headed by Michael Manser's adult Gimpel and a strong Modena section was won by Tommy Elton with his daughter, Amy, winning the trophy for Best Junior Fancy.

The judge remarked on the quality of these Modenas and also the Wests. Before the show, I had a headache with the Maltese (now popular in this area). The exhibitors told me they were 17 inches high. Our pens are only fifteen inches high, so I mounted two sets on two inch blocks of wood, only to observe, when the birds were in the pens, that there was now at least FOUR inches to spare over the birds' heads!

OK! OK!, I know, the standard SAYS seventeen inches!

But the competitive side was only part of the event as a whole. John Graves brought along some of his expensive pigeon ornaments to display, along with numerous display boards. Kevin and Christine Keeler also brought along display boards and their 'Pigeon Show' banner. On the Sunday, the Keelers and Elsdons took along more pigeons to stage a display for the public to see. In fact, I found this display harder work than the actual show the day before!

And, to top all that, we had along with us Michael Manser and the Pied Piper, John Allen with their highly successful and renowned 'Pigeon Aviary' from the Cambridge Columbarian Society, in which Diane Vorndran's amazingly tame Nuns did their stuff, all day long on Sunday.

When is someone from the NPA Management Committee going to come along and view this superb effort in promoting our pigeon hobby?

Our maxim is a simple one - PIGEON KEEPING FIRST - EXHIBITING SECOND.

There's no apathy in this little corner of Norfolk!

JOHN ELSDON

Secretary, King's Lynn Fur & Feather Society

An extract from the July 2004 issue of Feathered World

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