Ken Hanby is a life vice president of the National Flying Club, following on from
being the President from 1996 to 1998. This soft spoken Yorkshire man is an N.F.C. fancier
through and through, recording many premier positions through the years, including 1st.
Sect K. 16th. Open Guernsey old hens in the 2002 season. Ken is a true Yorkshire man who
speaks his mind and never holds a grudge.
Ken’s father was a fancier in the 1930’s and on his retirement in 1962
started to race with Ken and his other son, being very outstanding in the long distance
events. Ken says he has won all his best positions from the distance, including 1st. Open
Amal. (12,000 birds), 14th. Open N.F.C. Saintes (536 miles) and won five R.P.R.A. awards.
He told me that Saintes is his favourite racepoint, which he maintains is a good distance
for a day’s fly. One of his top racers in recent seasons is his good Blue widowhood
cock which has won 36th. Open N.F.C. Saintes, 1st. N.E. 700 Mile Club Saintes and many
other prizes on the widowhood system. He is off Ken’s old family and was tried once
on the natural, but didn’t perform at all well on it.
Ken has raced widowhood since 1968 and has always raced cocks but, in the last few
seasons, he has raced a few hens, with outstanding success. If the weather is warm, his 25
widowhood cocks are paired up on 14th. February and they normally rear one youngster
before going on the system. He feeds his own widowhood mixture and never breaks down
because he is only interested in long distance racing, saying if you want a car to run,
you have to put petrol in it. Ken has two 60 mile single up training tosses every week and
uses a few inland races to get the birds fit. Ken’s smart, self built 40ft. loft has
three sections for widowhood cocks and three for the young birds. He has
‘sputnik’ traps when training, which convert to open door for race days. Each
widowhood section has nine nest boxes and he uses a sand litter on the loft floors.
The Mexborough loft houses 15 pairs of stock birds which are mostly retired racers and
these are kept in a brick garage, with a nice flight. These birds are locked in the flight
for 23 hours a day in the winter months, only being allowed in the garage for one hour a
day to feed. Ken has 50 young birds each year and these are raced to the south coast (200
miles) for education as he is not a great lover of young bird racing. The youngsters are
trained three times a week, from 35 miles, and are fed the same as the old birds, on
widowhood mixture. Ken has won Section K. in the N.F.C. several times in recent seasons.
The N.F.C. at the shows
The N.F.C. regularly has it’s stand at the major shows in the winter months and
this acts as a good meeting point for the members. I spent several hours on the stand this
winter and really enjoyed having a chat with the members as they paid their subs and
ordered their 2003 national rings. Bill Harris, president of the N.F.C. and I had a
meeting with Andre Hoche of France, to talk about the Continental liberation sites. Andre
was to be a guest at the N.F.C. Blackpool prize presentation last December, but had a
bereavement in his family and couldn’t attend. At our meeting, this great French
fancier presented Bill with a very nice pewter plaque for a prize on one of our 2003
National races.
Paul O’Leary was on the N.F.C. stand at the Blackpool show, demonstrating the new
N.F.C. database and searched through the race records, 1998 to 2002, to find some unique
pigeons and performances. One such pigeon was GB 97 N 97097, raced by the well known, Biss
& Waite partnership in Section F. This pigeon has been clocked on eight separate
occasions with it’s worst performance being 204th. Open, 16th. Sect. Saintes in 1991,
whilst it’s been in the top 100 from each of the four cross Channel race points used
in this time. This is a terrific pigeon by any measurement and I’ll simply let the
statistics speak for themselves:
1999:
Nantes – 8th. Open, 2nd. Section, vel. 1791.
Pau – 126th. Open, 7th. Section, vel. 971.
Saintes – 204th. Open, 16th. Section, vel. 1147.
2000:
Pau – 160th. Open, 21st. Section, vel. 846.
Saintes – 169th. Open, 7th. Section, vel. 966.
2001:
San Sebastian – 35th. Open, 2nd. Section, vel. 1294.
2002:
Pau – 41st. Open, 3rd. Section, vel. 777.
Saintes – 63rd. Open, 8th. Section, vel.1015.
A brilliant pigeon! If any member needs to contact me with any National Flying Club
news, please phone me on 01372 463480 or email keithmott@btopenworld.com .
