Nora Major of Putney by Keith Mott

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Nora Major of Putney.

I first met the late Nora Major in the mid-1970’s and being one of the best lady fanciers I’ve had the pleasure to meet. I first visited her Putney loft in 1977 for an article. Nora was a great worker for the sport, always willing to help anyone and was famed for her blunt manner. A spade was a spade with Nora, but she got the job done!

In 1968 Nora built a loft for her 11 year old son, Francis, who wanted to race a few pigeons which were scrounged from here, there and everywhere. The 40 strong young bird team collected that year were raced through the card and only one 6th position was won. Francis had lost interest in the sport by 1969, but Nora had caught the bug and was intent to improve her stock and win races. In 1969 the turning point in Nora’s pigeon career came when she met Alex Fleming of Esher and obtained six eggs from him and by 1970 she had a loft full of Fleming pigeons and never looked back. Nora said at the time all her best pigeons were Fleming and she owed all her success to Alex. Most of her team in 1970 was bred down from the original six birds and she won her first race from Bournemouth that year and celebrated that same night with other club members by throwing a big party at her house. She had previously met Bill Bonamy of Ealing, who had many impressive trophies around his house, which included an uninscribed replica with a pigeon on top. Nora took a fancy to the replica and Bill promised he would present it to her when she won her first race. The night of the party, Bill turned up at midnight and presented her with her first trophy. From that day the trophies poured in with the Alex Fleming pigeons winning out of turn, but after all her great success she said the big thrill of winning had gone. She said that she was quite unmoved in 1976 when she recorded 1st, 2nd, 4th and 7th club Dax (537 miles), having the only pigeon on the day of liberation in the Richmond club. She said the sense of achievement had gone and she felt ashamed when she took all the trophies in the club that season, leaving three trophies for 40 other members to share. Nora told me, she was a hopelessly addicted pigeon person and thought she should have been a man. She considered one of the nicest compliments she had received was in 1973 when she had won the much coveted ‘Brooker Gold Cup’, in the London Coly for the second time. A veteran of the sport came and shook her hand and with his congratulations he said, ‘Nora, you are a jolly good pigeon man’, to win the ‘Brooker Gold Cup’. You had to nominate no more than six birds at the beginning of old bird racing, then on the night of marking for Niort, only one bird of the six may be nominated for the race. Nora won the Niort race with her one nominated bird two years on the trot.

I made my trek to Nora’s Putney home in the heart of the London Federation just before Christmas in 1976 and the first stop was her living room to look at her fantastic array of trophies. She had won many outright and said when she took one off the club, she always bought one to replace it. She had won 20 trophies in 1976 in the very strong Richmond & Dist. H.S. and London Coly, which also included Old Bird Average and Continental Average in the mighty London Federation. Nora’s loft was 24f x 8ft, four compartments and the birds were trapped through drop holes. They were cleaned out every day and all the old birds were raced on the natural system with very little training, as they were raced on Wednesday and Saturday. The feed was a good mixture, but was not given on a regular basis as Nora liked to give them a change. The three pairs of stock birds and 25 pairs of racers were paired up in late January and about 60 young birds were bred each year. All pairings were made by eyesign which she said she had learnt by reading S.W.E. Bishop’s book, ‘The Secret of Eyesign’.

The first pigeon we looked at was the 1976 ace bird, a pure Fleming dark chequer pied hen, ‘72437’, and she recorded 1st club, 7th Federation Dax (536 miles) in 1976. She was the only bird on the day in the Richmond club and there was only seven on the day in the London Federation. She was a nice apple-bodied hen with a nice eye and strong back. A great pigeon! Nora’s family of club and Federation winners goes on and on, but her favourite pigeon was her blue chequer hen, ‘Blue Lady’, and she was Nora’s number one stock hen, breeding winners every year, and she was bred by Alex Fleming. Her best pigeon was her champion blue pied hen, ‘Nora’s Hen’, and this brilliant bird was a champion in the truest sense, winning, 1975: 3rd club, 1977: 1st club, 1st Federation, 1st open L&SC Combine (2,868 birds) Bergerac, 1st club, 5th Federation, 13th open Combine Nantes, 1978: 1st section E, 4th open NFC Pau Grand National (£1,052), 1st club, 5th Federation, 18th open Combine Nantes, 1790: 26th section E. NFC Pau. What a pigeon! She was bred from the Alex Fleming lines when crossed with a pigeon from Mick Graham of then Richmond and when Nora retired from the sport in the early 1980’s this champion hen was sold to C.H. Besant of New Malden for £1,000.

Nora’s loft housed many Federation winners and found it hard to tell of her best achievement but in 1974 she was highest prize winner in the West Middlesex Federation, winning Young Bird Average Cup, Federation Points Shield, 1st, 2nd Federation in June, and 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Federation in August. She was 1st, 2nd, 3rd club Bergerac (450 miles) in the Putney club in 1973 and Nora’s loft was premier prize winner in the Richmond club six seasons out of seven in the 1970’s. A wonderful record! As well as being the secretary of the Richmond club and the London Coly for many years, she was also a vice president of the RPRA London Region and president of the London Federation. She was very hot on bookwork, recording everything on paper. She didn’t like showing her birds and said she only put her pigeons into pens to support the club. Nora always told novices to get a family of birds from a premier flyer, like the late great Alex Fleming. Nora always maintained that there was no other pigeon fancier to match Alex! She was a very keen gardener and if my memory serves me right, I think she won the best loft and garden competition in the 1970’s. A great lady!

Text & Photos by Keith Mott (December 2025)