‘NATIONAL FORUM’

WITH KEITH MOTT

The month of December saw the National Flying Club hold it’s annual prize giving dinner, dance at the very plush Hilton Hotel in Blackpool. The weather conditions for the whole weekend were excellent, allowing fanciers to travel to the North Western seaside resort with ease, and the Hilton has a wonderful outlook over the sea, being sited on the North Promenade at Blackpool. The 280 members and guests sat down to a really excellent four course prime fillet of beef meal and chief guests were Dr. Carlo Gyselbrecht and his son Nikolaas, Mr. & Mrs. Carlo Napolitano and the R.P.R.A. president, Brian Tattersall and his wife, Ruth. Dr. Carlo Gyselbrecht is a pigeon vetinary surgeon from Belgium and had the bad luck to loose his luggage en route to England, only having it delivered to the hotel, 30 minutes before the start of the National dinner. The National officers on the top table were, Bill and Julie Harris, Mr. & Mrs. Roy Cristopher, Sid and Karen Barkel and Clive Merrills.

The speeches were kept to the point and in his address the president, Bill Harris, paid tribute to the 2002 winners, saying the season had many outstanding performances. The highlight of the event is the presentation of the trophies and the 2002 Pau Grand National winner, John Ayling of Fareham, gave a short speech on picking up his silverware, which included the ‘ King George V Trophy’. John emphasised in his address that he liked the early morning liberation from the Pau National and said the 2002 event was hard, but fair, with nine section winners being recorded in the first 30 of the open result. He paid tribute to Brian Denney’s game Dark cock ‘Tuff Nutt’ who recorded 5th open Pau National, flying 738 miles into Yorkshire.

The 2002 National winners were

Nantes: M & S King of Blandford Forum

Pau: J.R. Ayling of Fareham

Saintes: R. Davis of Bristol

Guernsey (young bird): Mr. & Mrs. Bellchambers & sons of Brentford

Guernsey (old hens): Mr. & Mrs. J. Wright of Lutterworth

I will be penning ‘NATIONAL FORUM’ features on all these lofts in the coming weeks. The 2002 Pau Grand National, being liberated at 0615 hours in a North West wind, turned out to be a very hard race, with John Ayling recording the only bird on the day of liberation in the national, to win 1st. open with his fantastic Blue cock ‘HOME ALOAN’. It’s a once in a lifetime performance to be 1st. open Pau N.F.C., but to go through the rest of your life saying,’ I had the only bird on the day of liberation in the Pau National ‘ must be mind boggling!

I was on the next table to John at the National dinner and it was wonderful to see the pride and joy on the faces of his family when he was called up to the top table, to collect his trophies. Congratulations to the Ayling family on their wonderful Pau National winner! John Ayling was born in the Sussex and Hampshire borders town of Emsworth, and he had no pigeon fanciers in his family, but his grand father was a life time cage birds fancier.

When he was a lad, his father used to take him to the local allotments on a Sunday and he spent the whole time watching the pigeons exercise around the local lofts. John first started keeping pigeons at the tender age of seven, when he and some friends used to catch strays. They trapped them at the local Mill pond when they came down for a drink of water and kept them in orange boxes, purchased from the local green grocer for a tanner (six old pence) each. He started racing in 1965, with six youngsters he bred from a gift pair of pigeons and won two firsts, plus several 2nds and 3rds in the local club. The young John would have won the young bird average, but in the those days the Solent Federation longest young bird race was from Rennes and he didn’t time in. Where he lived he had several well known fanciers living near by, including Vic Robinson and Norman Southwell, who he admired very much. John has now been in the sport 53 years and his first real strain of pigeons were Newman / Cattrysse, and one good Blue White Flight cock won 1st. open and his off spring won 2nd. and 7th. open in the Solent Federation. His first club was the Borough of Gosport and raced to a small shed, with a wooden box trap. John told me that his early mistakes were pushing the pigeons on too far, too quick and racing them every week, with out a rest. The Ayling set up now consists of a 22ft. x 6ft. old bird loft, with an apex tiled roof and a 12ft. x 6ft. loft for the youngsters. He thinks the most important factors in good loft design are total dryness and good ventilation. Deep litter has been used on the loft floors in past seasons, but John says the pigeons seemed to be happy with it, but he found it trod all around the garden and in to the house. He has always raced on the natural system and gives the birds as much freedom as possible, saying if he could give them an open loft, 24 hours a day, he would. He races on the natural cycle, taking the eggs away to have the birds sitting right for the main races. He keeps about eighteen pairs of racers and normally pairs up the third week in February, and when they lay their second round of eggs, he starts to train them, with their first toss being from about 20 miles. John likes to give them a couple of training tosses each week, but these get more frequent for races like the Pau National. He hopper feeds through out the racing season and likes all the old birds, including the yearlings, to go to the longest club race. His favourite nest condition for Pau is cocks sitting 8 to 12 day old eggs and hens sitting due to hatch, and says he has never had any success flying to a youngster in the nest. John’s main family are Cattrysse, which he has had for a long time, but has introduced stock from A.T. Deacon and the Eijerkamp / Muller, Van-de-Wegen pigeons from the Ponderosa stud. John tells me that Champion ‘HOME ALOAN’ was bred from a pigeon he was trying out from a local fancier, which was of Delbar origin. He doesn’t keep stock birds as such, but has one or two retired premier racers, which he breeds from, but when he brings in a new pigeon, he goes to a top loft and races the bird right through before breeding from it. He finds that normally the best racers are the best breeders. John breeds about 35 youngsters for racing every season and these are trained through to 20 miles, but says one year, he gave them their first toss from 35 miles and got them all home in 40 minutes. The Ayling young birds are fed on a no Maize mixture and are raced on natural to the perch. His thoughts on the ‘Darkness’ system are, if you interfere with nature, nature will get it’s own back on you! The young bird team is raced right through the Federation programme to the longest race. John’s occupation is a dental tech., which he has done since leaving school and says his family have always taken an interest in his pigeon racing. His 32 year old son has always been very keen on the pigeons and started racing on his own last season, with some good success.

John is only interested in long distance racing and the loft’s best performances in recent seasons are: 1st. sect. 1st. open Pau N.F.C., 1st. sect. 1st. open Pau C.S.C.F.C., 5th. open Pau / Saintes N.F.C., 1st. sect. 11th. open Pau N.F.C., 12th. open Pau C.S.C.F.C., 30th. open Pau N.F.C. and so on! One pigeon that John bred won 12th. and 40th. open C.S.C.F.C. and 30th. open in the N.F.C. A brilliant family of long distance racers! Needless to say, that John’s most thrilling experience was clocking the only bird on the day and winning the Pau Grand National with his champion ‘HOME ALOAN’. He is interested in the eye sign method and likes to see a nice broken iris, and has no interest in showing his pigeons. John says he doesn’t think that clubs should be allowed to exclude new members with out a good reason. He also maintains the sport has not progressed in the last 20 years, and we need much better public relations, as we only seem to get bad publicity in the National media. John says he admires the performances of Paul Kendal of Wantage, saying he only sends a few pigeons to the premier events, but is always at the top of the results. The Ayling loft has been established on inbreeding and linebreeding, and John maintains that if you keep out crossing, you never know where you are. He always breeds a few late breds each season from his principal racers and as three year old’s, sometimes turn out to be some of his best racers. He thinks the moult is very important and calls for special feeding, including oil seeds and parts the sexes after the last young bird race, to rest the birds for the winter months.

I would like to finish this 2002 annual dinner and trophy presentation article by giving a vote of thanks to Doreen Kneller and her band of helpers for all their good work in arranging this great weekend. As I’ve previously stated, I will be writing on the National winning lofts and principal trophy winners in the coming weeks.

Well that’s our ‘NATIONAL FORUM’ for this week. If you have any views on the N.F.C. and need to contact me about them, I’m on TELE: 01372-463480 EMAIL ADDRESS: keithmott@btopenworld.com or write to 38, Foxwarren, Claygate, Esher, Surrey, KT10 0JZ. Text and Photos by Keith Mott (N.F.C. Press Officer).