westcotts 2

By George Wheatman

They never stop planning, the Men of Lerwick – the fanciers who love to take on the toughest challenge that the north road can offer.

June 26th is the date this year that is pencilled in the diary of all North Road Championship Club members. Five days after the Summer Solstice, new convoyer and long-serving NRCC secretary, Steve Spinks, will face the long journey to the Shetland Isles and the biggest test of his new skills.

The weather there can be spiteful and treacherous and, on the long journey home, it can still throw its tantrums, and provide unexpected obstacles even for the best-prepared birds.

But, up and down the country, there are fanciers who can hardly wait for the big day, to face all the difficulties that a 500-600 mile race can throw at them. They have already earmarked their team to target the coveted King’s Cup, wary, of course, of all the hazards that can be encountered in training and preparation races. And around the loft.

Popular winner in 2009 was Rob Walton, of Ollerton, still flying as Walton Brothers as a tribute to his late brother, who had a fantastic race to take first and third places.

He will tell you that it was one of the best days of his 50 years on this earth and, seven months later, he is still “buzzing” with an insatiable appetite to try again.

The two-year-old widowhood Wildermeersch cock bird that put his name among the legends, will not be racing again. His activities will be confined to the stock loft, being paired, at the moment, to Rob’s section winner from Dunbar.

But the pigeon that was third will, all being well, be in the crates that Mr Spinks will be steering carefully to the extremities of the British Isles. This bird, another two-year-old Wildermeersch widower, was, in fact, sent back to Thurso last year, and timed on the day.

The 2009 Lerwick race, the 94th in the illustrious history of the NRCC, attracted an entry of 1627 from 297 members, and 33 of those competitors verified on-the-day arrivals in what was a testing race.

Rob, who had two home on the day, and another early next morning, had been slightly downhearted about his previous attempts from Lerwick, but now he admits to “having the bug”. What better incentive could he have than trying for a repeat win?

“Hopefully, I shall be preparing a team of ten or 12 for this year’s race,” he said. “One thing I have learned and that is that you have to send your best pigeons, otherwise there will be nothing for you from Lerwick.”

This sentiment is echoed by Russ Skinner who, with wife Denise in partnership, was second last year, and who was the NRCC winner from Thurso in 2006.

Since being a boy, around father Albert’s loft, Russ, now in his early ‘40s, has dreamed of winning the King’s Cup. And he will be trying his hardest to realise that dream during the summer of 2010.

He sent his biggest ever team of 19 pigeons last year, had eleven in the result, and all of them home, albeit one in a box after being reported in Yorkshire.

Most of these will be available for team selection this year, and, again, if the Gods allow, leading the Skinner bid will be the three-year-old blue Van De Rhee widowhood hen that won Section Two when finishing runner-up in the open.

Russ repeats the view: “You have to send your best if you want a chance of winning.”

Six of his Lerwick birds went back to Thurso last year, and all returned having raced more than 900 miles in three weeks, but they had to take second place to the yearlings sent alongside them. The Skinners were 17th open from Thurso, and these yearlings, now two-year-olds of course, will be challenging for a chance to show their paces from Lerwick, hopefully giving a team of youth mixed with experience.

Russ prepared sections of his team in different ways last year, in a bid to cope with whatever conditions were thrown up on the day.

He was pleased with the recovery rate of all his pigeons which returned from Lerwick, a sign that he had the preparation right. Now he has in his loft one bird which has flown Lerwick five times, and two more which have completed the marathon three times.

“It takes years to build a good team,” he said. “You can lose good pigeons at Lerwick, but you have to send your best if you want any chance of winning.”

Apart from doing well in the NRCC races last year, Russ and Denise had a great season with Peterborough and District Federation where they won the old bird, long distance and combined averages, as members of Boston and District Flying Club.

Russ has a preference for racing hens. No wonder, when you see that 19 of his last 25 red cards have been won by hen birds.

Section Three from Lerwick last season was won by another enthusiast for north road racing, Martin Lewis from Spalding, and he is another man who throws his hat in the ring for the long distance game.

His section winner was a six-year-old blue white flighted widowhood cock bird of mainly Hermans blood, having his fourth trip from the Shetlands. Always a steady, reliable bird, he had been 89th open a couple of years ago, and has been rewarded with a place in the stock section.

He goes there with good credentials because his brother was 5th open NRCC Lerwick, for Spalding clubmate John Bellerby, in 2008.

This came about because Martin borrowed a hen bird from his pal, John, one of the most consistently successful fanciers in the area, to pair with a fancied cock bird in his own loft. John had the second round of youngsters from this pairing and, as it turned out, a section winner from Lerwick.

I guess it is not often that brothers have achieved the same honour in successive years.

Martin is now 66 years old, and, four years into a retirement that was brought on by ill health, is now, hopefully, in control of the blood complaint that was his problem, and enjoying his pigeons again.

He races in the strong Spalding Homing Society, and remembers the days when the club had 80 members. The figure is just over a quarter of that now, but it is still a competitive club as members of the equally difficult to win Peterborough Central Federation, of which Martin is President.

Martin timed his first on-the-day pigeon from Lerwick (a Grooters cock which was fifth club) as a teenager, and has been hooked on distance racing ever since.

His has always been a name to look for in results, and he was top prizemoney winner in his club last season. He sent five to Lerwick, timed the one on the day, and the other four returned the following day. “I was quite pleased with that performance,” he said.

He recalls one particular race, 1970 or 1971 he believes, when no birds were home on the day from Lerwick, and he timed at 4pm on the Sunday. A week later there were still only five birds home.

Martin prefers the races from Banff (now Fraserburgh), Thurso and Lerwick. “A lot of fanciers don’t want to race further than 200 miles, which is a shame,” he said. “They will never know the thrill of timing a pigeon from the distance. You can’t explain it, and it is something they will never understand.”

He used to race a team of Kirkpatricks, which were always reliable over the distance, but he says you need something faster these days to compete with the quality of fancier you meet in the NRCC.

Already, like a true pigeon man, he is planning his attack on Lerwick again this year.

“I have a team earmarked,” he said. “One or two.”

The Kings Lynn partnership of Perry Brothers and Son will be forever famous for their fantastic result from Lerwick in 2002 when, to everyone’s astonishment, they took the first three places.

That incredible performance did not lead to complacency, and they are still chasing honours with enthusiasm, on the south road as well as north these days.

Last year they won section four again from Lerwick, in addition to being second section from Fraserburgh, while, from the other direction, gaining a commendable fourth open result with the Midland National FC, plus other good section positions to complete an excellent season.

Section winner from Lerwick was a three-year-old widowhood cock from their favoured Vandenbroucke family, and was their only bird on the day, although they had four more the next morning. This had always been a steady, reliable pigeon and, although it had no wins on its CV until this race, it had a number of cards to its credit.

Satisfying from the partnership’s point of view is the fact that it was bred off a daughter of the second pigeon in their 1-2-3 season.

Although the Kings Lynn club, of which the Perrys are long-standing members, has opted to fly south this season, Guy says they plan to continue competing with the NRCC and, hopefully, will prepare their pigeons by sending them as trainers with the Wisbech club.

It would be a rare NRCC result sheet these days that did not feature E Baker and Son, whose loft is based on a farm in Buckworth, Huntingdonshire. They won Section Five from Thurso in 2008, and stepped up a few miles last year to win their section from Lerwick.

Brian Baker is assisted by experienced Londoner, veteran Ron Lamprill, in looking after the pigeons, and together they make a formidable team, hence their consistent success, not only in the nationals but also racing with Huntingdon and St Neots clubs, and with the Peterborough and District Federation.

From Lerwick, they maintained their good form of recent seasons.

No stranger to the section winner’s enclosure is Ivan Rich, a 61-year-old self-employed plasterer from Isleham, who topped Section Six from Lerwick, with a little three-year-old blue hen.

Sent feeding a small baby, she surprised Ivan by dropping into the loft out of the mist at 5am on the second day. “It was a bit of a shock to us,” he said. “Although we were up and ready, we did not expect any pigeons as early as that because it was so misty. The next pigeon to arrive was at about 8am. We had about a dozen on the day.”

The section winner, flying 544 miles, could not have been far from home the previous night.

A big team flyer, Ivan is a great supporter of the North Road Championship Club, and his planning revolves around the NRCC programme.

Having had a good Thurso race the year before, he sent a team of about 30 to Lerwick in 2009, and had good returns.

Bred down from his long-established Leon Boers stock, and crossed into Marc De Vadder lines, the section winner had been his fifth pigeon from Thurso the year before, and her nestmate has won third section from Fraserburgh.

Ivan has had the Leon Boers pigeons since 1981, and crossed them into Busschaerts. He acquires new birds every year to try with them.

The result is a consistently successful loft in the NRCC, the Ely club and Peterborough and District Federation where he has won at section level.

He flies natural to a very open, and exposed loft which obviously toughens up the pigeons for the task ahead. Young birds have to fly the programme to Dunbar, two-year-olds must go to Thurso, and then it is on to Lerwick for the three-year-olds.

Although he has now retired some good 01, 02 and 03 birds, he hopes to have a strong team again for Lerwick this year, already having quite a number that have experienced what it takes to make it home from the Shetland Isles, plus a good number that flew Thurso in style in 2009.

Ivan says he will have a good team of yearlings for this year’s racing, having experienced minimal young bird losses.

It is fanciers like Ivan Rich who are the backbone of the NRCC, always looking forward to the next race, always sending a big team, and always optimistically planning for the future.

Year in, year out, the North Road Championship Club races throw up some amazing performances, and the drama intensifies from Lerwick.

Right on cue, in 2009, up stepped the partnership of R and W Fox and Justice, in reality Roy Fox and grandson Will, from Harrow. At the age of 73, Roy has overcome illness that would devastate lesser men, and now tends for his sick wife, as well as looking after his team of pigeons, driven by the more youthful enthusiasm of young Will.

Don’t forget, when talking of Lerwick, what is a 500-mile, or in some cases less, race for many members, it becomes, a 600-mile race for London fanciers, some of whom are turning in more and more impressive performances from year to year.

The pessimists say the NRCC can never be won in London. The optimists live with the hope that it can. There certainly are fanciers with the capability of achieving this ultimate accolade. If more were to join the NRCC and accept this biggest of challenges, the increase in birdage could help this ambition become a reality.

Already showing what outstanding performances can be achieved are the likes of Roy and Will Fox.

Not only did they win Section Seven, but they also took second and third place in a year when Roy set his stall out to achieve such success, proving what an outstanding fancier he is.

Spurred on by Will, he selected six hens for the task, put them in a shed on their own, eventually let them pair together, borrowed some youngsters to let them feed and so avoid laying too much, and then had them sitting ten days when despatched to Lerwick.

They sent four of these hens and three arrived home, on the second day, at 7-20am, 7-50am and 8-15am. The fourth is still missing.

Roy says they were in great condition despite the long trek home, and, within ten days, were sitting again.

They looked so good that Will could not resist urging his granddad to send them back to the last NRCC old bird race of the season, from Thurso.

Roy gave in, and did as he was told! What happened? Those same three Lerwick hens finished third, fourth and fifth section from Thurso. Some pigeons! And what skill by the fanciers.

Going back to the Lerwick race, Roy did not expect such early arrivals on the second day because it was a murky morning, and his son had driven from Luton, having to use his headlights so bad was the visibility.

Before all this drama from Lerwick and Thurso, the Fox and Justice partnership had also won their section from Fraserburgh with a cock bird, so it is an understatement to say that they had a good season.

As part of their preparation for the big races, the pigeons often have single-up tosses from Luton, and Roy also likes a drive to Boston for a training toss, 90 miles, again single up.

In his early days in the sport, Roy’s loft housed the old breeds of Putmans and Barkers, but the present team can rightly be said to be his own breed, coming down from the Studtopper and Superman Busschaerts.

Roy loves distance racing, and he thinks this stems from the time he used to take train journeys up to Shipley in Yorkshire to visit his sister.

“I used to look out of the carriage window and see all the hills, and the slag heaps, and think of all the hazards our pigeons had to face on race days,” he said. “I still have that in mind when sending my pigeons. People underestimate the achievements of our birds.”

Distance racing and George Colthorpe go hand in hand, and any Lerwick result sheet that did not feature the Ipswich veteran would, indeed, be a blank canvas.

Of course, he did not disappoint in 2009, and won Section Eight.

One of the delights of being Press Officer for the NRCC is having an excuse for talking to this legend, and he never fails to entertain, educate and amuse. Having had pigeons around him for pretty well the whole of his 76 years, he has plenty of stories to tell. In all the years he has sent pigeons to Lerwick – 568 miles to his loft - he has never failed to time in.

No wonder that he has such empathy with pigeons because, when he was a toddler, his mother used to lock him in his father’s pigeon loft to keep him out of mischief while she nipped to the shop just up the road.

Sitting on a biscuit tin, with birds all around him, was a great way of spending the time for young George.

Now, although all those years of working on the dirty, dusty jobs on the dock have left him with breathing difficulties, he still loves the pigeon racing game, even though he has to adjust his tactics to fit the restrictions imposed by the health problems.

None of this, however, affects the quality of pigeons in his possession, most of which are bred down from the famous old Westcotts by the simple policy of mating best to best.

His section winner last year was a four-year-old dark chequer cock timed in at 8-29am on the second day. Only a little earlier, George had been professing to a friend that he would be well satisfied with an arrival by 8-30am – and his pigeon obliged with a minute to spare.

It was unusual for George’s first timer to be a cock bird, because he has a preference for hens for distance racing, but, on this occasion, he sent five hens and five cocks, the cocks being sent on the 568-mile trip because they were advancing in years and had not done a lot of racing.

The section winner had never been as far as Scotland before, but he was bred off pigeons that had flown Lerwick, his mother being a section winner.

This, perhaps, is one of the Colthorpe secrets. He never works his pigeons hard before their big test. One of the wins for which he is famous was in the NRCC’s first of two races from Saxa Vord back in 1977.

The hen bird that won over a distance of 610 miles with an impressive velocity of 1406ypm, had only eight races in her life, and her racing career emphasises the patience of George, and the courage of his convictions when he believes the time is right to act.

The Saxa Vord winner was born in 1994, and had four races as a young bird, being the first bird home in every one of these races.

Her reward was to be given a year off racing and be allowed to grow, and mature. So no racing in 1995.

She was sent to Selby at the start of the 1996 season, and was late, very late, with good reason – she came home badly “skinned” having had a collision with wires.

So no more racing in 1996.

Come 1997, and her big year, she was sent to Selby, and then jumped into Lerwick for her next race. Three weeks later, she was sent to Saxa Vord, from where she won. That was two races of 568 miles and 610 miles in three weeks. Says a great deal about the fancier, and his knowledge of his pigeons.

Needless to say, she did not race again, but, before she died a couple of years ago, she left a legacy of good pigeons in the Ipswich loft.

To prove George’s point about distance pigeons breeding distance pigeons, her mother had flown Lerwick six times.

Being on open hole, weather and sparrow hawks permitting, George’s birds get plenty of exercise around home, and not so many training tosses these days as being enclosed in his van with the birds has an adverse effect on his asthma.

He does not do as much club racing as he used to do, and nor does he bother with the early NRCC races.

Feeding the best Irish Mix, his favourite condition for pigeons he sends to the distance is having them on eggs for 10 to 12 days, and he would usually back his hens to beat the cock birds (he likes a flutter on the pools), that is until this year.

Encouraged by the form of his cocks from Lerwick this year, he sent eight more, lightly raced, to Thurso (489 miles) and was well pleased with the manner in which they performed.

The sum total of this is that, hopefully, he will have a good number from which to select his Lerwick team this summer.

And, looking even further to the future, he would love to compete again from Saxa Vord with the NRCC in 2011.

While he waits, George continues to count the number of other fanciers who have been successful with his pigeons, including his friend Richard Boylin, now based in France, who (one senses to George’s amazement) apparently even flies them on widowhood.

So there you have it, just a snapshot of the NRCC Lerwick section winners from 2009. There were, of course, many more excellent performances because you can still do well from this race without winning anything.

Those who won will be trying for a repeat performance this year. Those who did not will be all out to do better.

Are you up for the challenge? If you are not a member of the most prestigious north road national club, you soon could be, by contacting secretary Steve Spinks at 10, Uldale Way, Peterborough, PE4 7GF (Tel: 01733 573109).