They were mealies. Two beautiful young racing pigeons and they were mine. They may have been 'late-breds' in August but they were my reward for a summer of helping the secretary of the local racing club.
This help had involved cleaning his lofts out at weekend, running messages and being on the platform of the local railway station on every occasion that birds were being race-marked. Yes, this was long before the days of road transporters and I was precisely 11 years old. As far as I was concerned it was an honour to be allowed to carry out these chores and to be rewarded with the gift of a pair of birds meant that all my Christmases had arrived together. And mealies!
Well, anybody could have blues or blue chequers couldn't they. My father had made me a small loft on his allotment at the back of our house because although he had no interest in pigeons (poultry were his interest), fortunately for me he had recognised that I had been well and truly bitten by the pigeon bug and had provided the most important ingredient for me to get started. (Well perhaps not quite as important as my mealies.)
As he handed the pair over to me in a cardboard box, Mr Lunt (club secretary, always 'Mister' even to the adults) told me that I should look to breed off them the following season and to fly with young birds which I had bred myself. 'Always race those you breed yourself,' he said, 'don't compete with other people's birds, just your own.'
Now at the end of August with two four-week-old youngsters, it was not possible to do anything other than to follow his advice, but of course in a very short space of time and indeed for all of the following years, I have done what the vast majority of fanciers do, namely race or show not only those I have bred myself but others which have been bought or gifted. Birds which have been obtained from not only in the UK but farther afield as well.
BUT the issue for debate this time is whether this is the way things should be or whether only owner-bred birds should be allowed to COMPETE at shows. (Don't start building the gallows just yet).
I am well aware that in recent years there was a lot of emotion raised by the decision to ban birds with foreign rings, let alone any obtained from other UK breeders. You will no doubt know that this decision was reversed and the only condition of showing any bird is that it must be properly registered to the exhibitor. But have we got it right? Why should it be possible for people to go out and keep buying 'winners' when in extreme cases they may never produce a winner of their own?
