Pigeons And The Paranormal BY Bilco

[Rooster J. Cogburn]

THE TORCH OF CROMWELL By Bilco

 

I SUPPOSE the first time I noticed something strange about the old Nunnery in Thetford, Norfolk, was when I stopped by there one fine early summer afternoon many years ago. I had a battered old Enfield 350 in those days, was single and fancy free, and was out training my old birds for a bash at Lerwick. that Thetford was right off the line of flight for my loft is true, but I had been throughly imbued with the theory that all round tossing was the correct thing to do in those days, so Thetford it was.<BR><BR>

 

After pulling on to the verge of the Common that skirted the left hand side of the road to Bury St Edmunds in those days, opposite the old Spike or Workhouse. I carefully placed the basket on a small grassy mound while i prepared to relax for a while, then I noticed the birds. They were all facing the rear of the basket, every last one of them, staring out of the wicker, unmoving, rigid, almost as if watching a hawk, or cat. As I lit up a Woodbine I stared long and hard in the direction of the Nunnery, some three or four hundred yards away, but seeing nothing amiss I sat myself down on the soft grass and enjoyed my smoke, stretching out my legs and balancing one booted foot on top of the other.<BR><BR>

 

I suppose I must have relaxed there for bout 10 minutes before stubbing out my cigarette, then, after arching my back to get rid of the crick in my shoulders, I prepared to let the birds go. they still stood, unmoving, facing the old Nunnery and not so much as a coo or a peck between them. I was pussled I can tell you.

They were all old birds, all over 3 years old, fit and fresh as good grub and fresh water, plus hard training, could make them. There were a couple of hard cases in there, birds that would have a crack at any other pigeon at the drop of an eyelid, and it was definitely odd to see them standing so quite and still. I must have looked at them for about four or five minutes, I couldnt make it out. Then I poked my fingers into the top of the basket and wiggled them about to see what the birds would do. They ignored me. I prodded a couple of them and they ignored me, so - getting a bit worried - I opened the basket and hauled them out, one at a time to look at them, but apart from turning their heads to remain looking in the direction of the old Nunnery as I moved them around, they remained motionless. I put em back, still puzzled, and finally dropped the front.<BR><BR>

 

I literally had to lift those birds out in order to make them fly, finally tipping the baskets up. they went of like bullets, due south, right away from home. When almost out of sight altogether, they started to circle, then after a couple of circuits they struck of west for home. Apart from thinking that pigeons could be damned queer at times, I dismissed the incident from my mind and, strapping the basket back onto the pillion, set off for home.<BR><BR>

 

 

The next time I happened that way was a year later, I again arrived at the same place with my basket of trainers, and set them down for a few minutes while I had a smoke. Believe it or not, the birds behaved exactly the same as they had the previous year. this so intrigued me that I walked the 300 yards over to the low grey stone wall that bordered the Nunnery, and peered over to see what it might be that so rivetted the birds attention.<BR><BR>

 

I could see nothing unusual, Id better explain that the place is still called the Nunnery, even though there have been no Nuns there for many years, having been sacked and ruined by Cromwellian troops in the war against the Roundheads centuries ago. today it is a thriving farm, and the great grey stone walls, some four feet thick, now house - or did when I last saw them - some excellent stables and an indoor riding school. I must have stood there for some 20 minutes, looking the place over, but for the life of me I could see nothing wrong. The same reaction was shown by the birds though, and after tossing them I set off home, muttering rhubarb or something similar to myself. The following year again I found a decided mystery about the Nunnery, and the reason for my birds strange behaviour during the two seasons when released near there.<BR><BR>

 

Its funny how Fate ordains things you know! Id had reason to notice the Nunnery twice in two years, and the third year I went further, I moved jobs and started to work there. The owner kept a large and quite useful string of race horses there, exercising and rearing them on about one third of the 1,000 acres that are part and parcel of the property. My father went there as Stud Master and I, as the bone headed idiot who knew better than to work seven days a week for a few shillings pocket money my unlamented sire allowed me, went to handle the coal black stallion that held court there at the time. I remember this horse well, he had been a middling good handicapper up 1 1/2 miles, and was a Christian with me handling him.

He detested the sight of my father though, and would charge him every time he set foot in the doorway of his loose box. This kept me in stitches - as I too detested my father with as much, if not more animosity and to see my charge handing out the sort of treatment to the old man that I would dearly liked to have given, was balm to my soul. id have done the job for no wages at all for that pleasure alone, and as I only had mere five shillings out of my $4 wage at the time, that wouldnt have made much difference to me anyway. Anyway, back to the tale, and to the pigeons.<BR><BR>

 

Id been at the Nunnery for about six months when I decided it was about high time I built myself a loft and re started in the sport. Id sold, or given away my team before moving to Thetford, and it took me a month or so to get together enough of them to re-start with. Building a new loft took only a few evenings, and it was not long before I had the place fitted with nestboxes, perches, drinkers and a feeding hopper. The sandy soil of that area only needed to be turned over in the suns strong glare for it to dry out, and it made an excellent deep litter I built a wire aviary on the top of the loft and the birds loafed about in it all day long. When I had YBs strong enough to fly up on the trap I let them laze about for a week, then one Friday evening I took down the whole issue and let the babies have the freedom to fly as they wished.<BR><BR>

 

They did. Every last one of them took to the air and made a beeline for the town a mile away. I saw them perched on every roof, but nary a one ever returned to me at my place. Deciding this catastrophe was more than flesh and blood could stand. I then tried to break the old birds in, so - choosing the next calm evening - with the birds full of grub, I let em out. They did exactly the same as the YBs, scarpered, every last one of them, and all I had left in the loft was some three or four pairs of eggs and a couple of babies not yet old enough to fly, or feed themselves for that matter.<BR><BR>

 

Now, to lose a few babies first time out is not unusual, but when the lot fly it makes you think, or at least it made me think. When you are breaking old birds in to a new location it is usual for them to at least fly round the place, even if only a half dozen times, but you almost never see the lot vanish like mist in the summer sun, theres always one or two that will settle after a spin or two of the new loft. Not this lot though, not one of them, so I did a bit of thinking.<BR><BR>

 

Coming to the conclusion that i must have been rearing and housing a loft full of idiots, I then went the rounds of the local lofts in an effort to either recover whatever of my stock had gone in them, or to acquire more birds, preferably local stuff that would be acclimatised. I got both, since almost every youngster and half of the old uns had found themselves a perch in one another local loft, and it was higher hopes and much relief that I took my birds home again and restored them to their perches. The evenings following I tried again the wire cage, feeding and watering the birds on the roof for a couple of days in an effort to get them used to their surroundings, and on the next Saturday evening I again let them out. The same thing happened, just as before, and every bird shot of like the clappers and disappeared from view in the direction of Thetford.<BR><BR>

 

Now this narked me a bit. I got the birds back again and a couple more that had trapped in after a weeks hunger, and I bought in a dozen YBs from local fanciers at very reasonable prices I lost the lot again!<BR><BR>

 

So it went on, week after week, right through the season. I had birds given to me, loaned to me, and sold to me, left, right and centre, but I couldnt get so much as even one of the blighted things to even circled the damned loft, let alone return to it. I investigated every square yard of the garden round the place, even digging it all over in case there was unsuspected smell in the ground that might be the cause of it, but no. Not a haporth of difference as the advts say. I moved the loft 50 yds, laid gin and tunnel tarps, in case I was being visited by varmints that troubled the birds. I sprayed every square inch of the loft against every known pest, just in case parasites were the reason for the hasty departure of the birds, and still they wouldnt stay within half a mile of the place. I was foxed. more than that, I was damned well beat by phenomenon and I didnt like it one bit, then - just as I was getting to be completely down hearted about the whole thing - I discovered the reason why no pigeon ever stayed on the place a second longer than it took to get the hell out of it.<BR><BR>

 

Dont imagine that all the foregoing took place in a few days. It might have taken you only a few minutes to read it, but these activities were stretched out over a period of months. Right through Spring, summer, autumn and into the winter to be precise.<BR><BR>

 

When winter came I had re-stocked again, and was determined to keep the birds in for a full year, if necessary, in an effort to break them in. A calm, if foggy, November faded into December and though the weather was cold it wasnt bad. Snow fell thickly early on in the month, and we had great fun around the place. The two rivers that ran through the farm were well stocked with fish, and wildlife flourished in abundance, with ducks and geese feeding on the rye stubbles at night, returning at dawn to the extensive marshy reebeds that bordered the Little Ouse for quite a long stretch. Rabbits multiplied on the farm, and this was well before the days of the curse of Myxomatosis, we had a hell of a time with gun, dog and ferret. Profitable too, and the farm hands wage in those days needed some bolstering I can tell you, still does in fact. The only thing that ever cast a shadow on these many excursions, was that our dogs (we had three of em) would never ventured out of the house at night. When we let them out for their bedtime walkies theyd nip to the nearest corner of the barn, lift a leg and then scoot back faster than you could say knife. As one who had been used to picking up a fair number of rabbits and hares with my black lurcher *expletive removed* Lucky after dark, I found this a bit disconcerting. Mention of it to the locals brought forth nebulous tales of ghosts, bogies, things and the like, all of which made me roar with laughter. I mean damn it, theres no such thing as ghosts is there? Mind you. I have felt uneasy on more than one occasion when I made my rounds of the stables at night, and it was not an infrequent occurrence to shine the lamp along the row of opened loose boxes in the walled yard, and find every horse had its head out of the door, while they stared intently towards the main building of the old Nunnery. I put it down to rats, wind, noises off and so forth, but it was an uncanny experience at times I can tell you. Foxes yapping in the converts didnt help matters much, and if youve never heard a vixen give her mating call on a November or December night, youve missed a hair creeping sound I can tell you.<BR><BR>

 

It was not that we went out to the stable yards at night from choice you understand, but that we had several brood mares heavy in foal, of which some five or six were due to drop their offspring early in January, and it didnt do to let Mother Nature do it all on her own all the time. She can and does make mistakes which can cost the life of an expensive animal. So it was then that I trudged my way through the fresh fall of snow on the evening of December 24th, cold, teeth chattering - not entirely from the crisp air and keen to get back inside again where it was warm, snug and dry. My battered old Smiths pocket watch reckoned it was just on midnight. the stallion was pounding his fore foot at the bottom of his stable door, a bad habit of his, and I could hear the swish, swish, swish as our ten year old grey mare Vanity trudged round and round in her box, the deep rye straw clinging to her hooves as she pcrambulated. the feel that she was soon to bare must have been giving her a touch of the boot, because she was definitely uncomfortable and thrashed her tail ever and anon. you could hear her clearly from 50 yds away, the night was that still. I started chuntering to myself as I approached her box, so that she could hear me coming and not be startled, and a moment later shone my torch into the gloom of her box. She heaved a huge sigh at me, nodded her head and blew a great sort of warm air in my face, and closed her eyes as I rubbed my hand across her forehead. a nice old girl she was, a proper lady to handle and no trouble at all<BR><BR>

 

Wish they were all like her, some can be proper savage when they please. I nattered away to her for a few moments, then she suddenly started out into the darkness of night. I heard it too, the clatter of may horses feet, steel shod hooves ringing on the flint cobbles that paved the yards and driveway of the stud.<BR><BR>

 

M first impression was that our Yearlings had got out. We had a dozen of them, all well grown, then i realised that the sound I heard was unusual, there was thick snow on the ground and there should have been no more than a muffled thumping. Then there was a flickering of light, like those old lanterns that are more trouble than they are use, and the shouting of many voices, harsh, coarse bellows, that rang on the night air like some mob of hooligans on the rampage.<BR><BR>

 

Running feet sounded, coming nearer all the time, the clattering of steel against steel, excited neighing of horses - though none of them ours, I prided myself on knowing the voice of every horse we had - and over all the bellowing orders, curses and someone roaring with laughter, a wicked, cruel laughter. A bell started to toll, and that was strange for there was no bell on the place, but I heard it peeling like the knell of doom, a deep mellow chime that boomed forth like a funeral toll. Then, the most chilling of sounds, the screaming of womens voices, dozens of them, and the sound of coarse robes rustling, as their wearers ran to escape the strike of gleaming sword blades that were suddenly visible in the ands of bearded, mail-clad soldiers, the source of the noise of the clattering steel.<BR><BR>

 

There was suddenly a flame that ran like a living thing, right up the vast soaring roof of thatch that crowned the great hall of the Nunnery, and I knew as well as I know my own face that that foof was slated, not thatched, yet I saw it burn like some great pyre, flames leaping into the sky with sparks spiralling upwards hundreds of feet. I was petrified with fear, the hair on my head crawled like some malignant living thing, and I shook with the knowledge that what I witnessed was not real, but was an echo of the tragic fate that the Nunnery had suffered so many ages ago. To add to my already gibbering fear I could hear the sounds of dogs howling, and I saw - as clearly as the living day - a woman running, her black robes trailing fire as she darted from the doorway of that great hall, her white cowl fluttering about her head like some demented butterfly, then the figure of a man, dressed in some sort of armour on his chest and a sharply doomed helmet atop his head, striding towards the fleeing figure, and he struck her down with his sword like some helpless animal at slaughter.<BR><BR>

 

Stopping over her prostate body, the man seized her in his muscular arms and tossed her over his shoulder like a rag doll, then - striding back towards the now blazing structure - he flung her body into the showering hail of burning reed thatch that fell from the roof. As he was about to turn away from the leaping flames, there appeared in the doorway another black - clad figure, her robes also burning, the creeping flame flickering at her back and crawling along her left sleeve. Her face was still in shadow, but bearing expressed none of the fear and terror that typified her unfortunate companions.<BR><BR>

 

Stepping slowly forth into the flame-lit yard, she held her right hand high to heaven, and the silver crucifix she held shone like some brightly gleaming star. The armour clad man turned towards her, raising his right arm with its gleaming sword clenched in his massive fist, the blade striking a shaft of light as he swung it with no more compassion than if it were felling a tree, he smote the Holy woman square across her cowled head. She staggered back but did not fall, her arm still extended to the sky and the blazing stream of sparks cascaded round her in a fiery golden shower. She was still holding the crucifix aloft, her face upturned towards the sky when, with a massive rumbling and crashing, the entire corner of the great hall crumbled away and fell about her, burying her under a hail of stone. The man roared with course laughter and turned away, running towards other figures evident in the smoke and gloom across the yard.<BR><BR>

 

As the masonry began to crumble and fall, I involuntarily looked upwards at the great tower that soared towards the snowfilled sky, and heard above the awful thunder of that roaring fire, the cluttering of wings as dozens of Doves poured forth into the night. Their wings were burning as they vainly tried to cleave tha air, and their bodies contorted with agony as they fought to escape the roaring inferno that reached ever higher to engulf them. I watched them fall, like living torches, their scorched and burning pinions still scribing circles of fire in a vain endeavour to escape from death, and this new horror wrenched a cry of anguish from my very soul.<BR><BR>

 

I ran. Im not ashamed to admit it, I was terrified, and I ran as if all the demons in hell were after me. When I burst through our front door I broke the frosted glass panel in it as I passed and reaped the curses of my father and the strength of his muscular right arm in the process. Despite my babbling tale, my assurances of what I had seen, I received another tremendous cuff across the head that sent me sprawling again, and turning away from me with a stream of oaths issuing from his scowling face,my father strode to the broken front door and gazed forth into the still quiet depths of Christmas Eve, where, apart from the gently falling snow, nothing stirred.<BR><BR>

Believe me, it took all my strength and courage to enable me to return to that yard the following morning, nothing on earth would have persuaded me to have returned that night.<BR><BR>

 

All was as it should have been, and there were no traces of the holocaust I had witnessed the previous evening. Nothing I could say or do would assure my parent that I had not been drinking, and I was docked my meagre pocket money until the window was paid for. It was some days before I could force myself to walk right up to the place where I had seen that Nun struck down, and even when I did finally make it, I had reassurance from the sloping heap of earth and rubble that still lay at the base of the corner of the once great hall, now centre piece of our inside stables.<BR><BR>

 

Never a religious man. I did however seek out our local parson and told him of all I had seen that night. He was skeptical at first but after thinking it over for a while, he asked me to stay a little longer while he dug out some musty old tomes that gave - at length - the history of the Thetford for some hundreds of years. the books, great heavily bound volumes, are now in the Museum at Norwich, and from their yellowed and fragile pages the Parson finally dug out the story of the sacking of the Thetford Nunnery, by Cromwellian forces on Christmas Eve. They had been to destroy any hiding place, or refuge, for Roundhead troops, or place where they might make a stronghold. The parson went further, he came up to the Nunnery the following week, where I showed him the place Where I had stood, and described again what I had seen. That my story tallied with the known history of the place so many years ago convinced him i was not lying. he then sought permission of my employer to conduct what amounted to an exhumation of that gently sloping mound of ancient rubble that still lay at the corner of the hail.<BR><BR>

 

The work was slow, but after a couple of days, at three feet blow the surface of the rubble, a glimmer of white struck the eye. The work was then conducted at a gentler pace and finally, a complete skeleton was exposed, that of a women. Her skull was cloven across from front to rear, proof that indeed she ad been struck a mortal blow, and in her outstretched right hand was still grasped a blackened silver crucifix! Tarnished by time, but still firmly held within the hand of its one time owner, whose death had not been sufficient to make her release her grip of the symbol of a Faith and belief as old as time.<BR><BR>

 

They removed this evidence of the grim fate that had befallen the Thetford Nunnery, and laid her to rest in consecrated ground where no doubt she found the the peace that she so richly deserved. Apart from being a seven day local wonder, my life soon returned to normal-if you can dismiss one strange occurrance as normal - that is.

I went down to feed my birds the next day, and found a whole crowd of pigeons on the top, most of which I recongnised as those lost during the previous years, youngsters and old ones alike. For the sheer hell of it I let all the inmates of the loft out, snow or no snow. They circled about for ages, twisting, turning, ranging and larking about like birds do when they enjoy their exercise. I never lost so much as a single feather of them!<BR><BR>

 

Like I say, it only takes a but of time to settle a team properly doesnt it?<BR>

 

Article Written By Bilco

[fletch]

good read

[tiabo]

Bloody good. I enjoyed that a lot.

[buster151]

a very good read

[Guest lambrechts31]

:scotland: THAT PASTED THE TIME FOR A WEE BIT THANKS FOR THAT M8 ANY MORE STORIES, OH BY THE WAY IF YOU,V GOT TO MANY PIGEONS NOW ANY CHANCE OF A FEW FREEBIES LOL :emoticon-0136-giggle:

[Kyleakin Lofts]

Good read. I enjoyed that.

[just ask me]

good read :emoticon-0137-clapping:

[Bilco]

Message for Rooster J.Cogburn . . .

 

If you're going to lift my short stories and publish them elsewhere, you might have the courtesy to add my name as its author, clearly evident since it is listed on a page with my photo on top and the legend "Bilco's Bulletin" below it.

I know it was lifted from that page, because the same typing errors as Reynolds made are also shown in the story you published". Cheers, Bilco.

[OLDYELLOW]

I'm sure its says at the bottom article written by Bilco unless it has been edited

 

 

lol

I have EDITED THE ARTICLE and I'm currently dealing with any issues that have arisen , this is why copying from other sites is not permitted , permission must be sought through the proper channels

[Bilco]

THE GREY GHOST OF ROME

 

"Old Nick" they called him - Nicholas Cox was his rightful name - and a kinder hearted character would have been hard to find anywhere. He was approaching his fiftieth birthday and the race of his life when the chain of events that make up this tale commenced. For months the talk throughout the Fancy had been the Rome race, no-one had thoughts for anything else it seemed - and though the members that participated were few, the interest in the sport was tremendous.<BR><BR>

 

Names that were legend in their own time were entering the race, and others with an eye perhaps to the fame and fortune that must fall to the winner, were thinking hard and long that their 'old lags' might do worse than have a go at it - after all, as quite a few must have thought - what was there to lose but an old stager whose fast racing days were over? Nick Cox was not one of the latter school however, his champion "Greywings" was a winner right down the line from 60 miles to nearly 600, and as a 4-yr-old he had spent only one night out in his life and that only as a result of the weather that had prevailed on the day of his longest race (which he had won comfortably). So it came about that on the fateful day "Greywings" was despatched with the pitifully few other contestants for the longest event ever staged in the history of British pigeon racing.<BR><BR>

 

Old Nick went home from the basketing and sat down in his favourite armchair and cried. All the remorse of a lifetime was evident in his tears as he quietly broke his heart, for he had sent his beloved bird on the hardest task ever demanded - and he knew that only the greatest hearted pigeons ever born would fight their tormented way over the Swiss Alps and the southern plains of France, before coming to the great water barrier that would test them all to the upmost, and Nick was not a cruel man. For 40 years he had kept pigeons, and enjoyed the love of every bird he ever owned - but of them all he had loved none more than "Greywings" the barless Blue cock he had bred down from the long line of champions and who was the culmination off all his experience.<BR><BR>

 

Finally the great day of liberation dawned. News didn't travel so quickly in 1913 but it finally percolated to the quiet corner of England where Nick waited with nerves keyed to an unbearable tension. A thousand miles away to the south "Greywings" was aloft, and to Nick that meant that he would come home - and home he came - but not as his owner envisaged or ever hoped.<BR><BR>

 

A week passed by, and all over England the pigeon men waited with fast beating hearts to hear if Rome could be flown. Silence was their answer. Another week came and went, and hope began to fade a little as still no news was heard of the gallant few pitted against such overwhelming odds. Nick grew quieter as the days passed, and spoke less to those who knew him. They for their part knew the torment the old man suffered in his heart, and left him be. Sometimes a neighbour started a half-hearted "Any news?" - but always the slow shake of Nick's greying head was all the answer they had in return. Then, one sunny afternoon the postman called at the lovely old cottage where Nick lived, and waving a postcard over his head he demanded the "Furrin stamp" that adorned the little white slip of pasteboard. nick took the proffered card with trembling hand, and in his heart he knew that the news it contained referred to his bird long before he lowered his eyes to read the brief message scrawled across the card.<BR><BR>

 

The writing was in a foreign language, but for all that Nick could see the numbers that spelled out the identity of "Greywings" - and his heart chilled with the sudden fear as he made out the word 'Mortis' and although he was not a learned man he knew enough to tell him that his great pigeon was dead. Tears ran down his weathered cheeks as he turned away, and with stumbling tread he made his way across to the rustic bench that stood alongside his neat little loft. the postman stood silent, his hands made vague pawing gestures as he sought vainly for words to comfort the old fellow, and finally he turned away with a heavy heart as - a countryman himself - he knew nothing he could say could assauge the grief the fancier felt.<BR><BR>

 

Nick read the postcard over and over again, searching for a clue that might tell him he had made a mistake, and that hope might still linger on. The date on the card was that of the day of liberation of the race, and in his sorrow the old man tortured himself with visions of "Greywings" exploding from the basket, only to collide with the wire stretched across the thoroughfare, waiting to claw the glorious life from feathered lustre that was the racing pigeon straining for home. Finally he raised himself from the bench and wearily made his way to the cottage, where, with the trembling hand he composed a short note to the Secretary of his local club tendering his resignation. Later he wrote another, longer note, and with it a few details of his beloved birds. A fortnight later the auction took place and Nicholas Cox was a fancier no more - save in his heart - and his cottage sold to couple from the town who cooed and clucked over the fading glories of the garden tended lovingly for so long.<BR><BR>

 

After the sale, Nick went to live with a widowed sister some fifty miles away and never again in the years remaining to him did he visit the scene of his bitterest heartbreak. He heard some months later of the joy and acclaim that was the just reward of the Lincolnshire fanciers Hudson, and the partnership of Vester & Scurr, but never again was he tempted to hold a pigeon in his hand though sometimes - on balmy summer days - he turned his eyes skyward at sight of a team of racers fleeting across the heavens, and on these occasions his spirit was heavy with remembrance.<BR><BR>

 

It was a year and half later, on Christmas Eve to be exact, that "Greywings" came home. The day was bitterly cold and the icy east wind that blew had travelled all the way from the Arctic wastes of Siberia. The snow that lay inches deep on the ground was frozen to a crisp carpet that squeaked when walked upon, and nothing moved abroad save only those poor souls that needs must. A leaden grey hued sky brooded over the desolation of winter, and in the hedges the starved bodies of the sparrows froze to their perches, dead - but unable to fall for the talons of ice that held them. The wind moaned through the wires and round the eaves of the cottages, and blew a stream of icy flakes along in a biting cascade, always seeking but never finding a resting place. Through this, then, tired wings driving him ever onward came "Greywings" - a thousand miles of frozen landscape away from the Italian peasant who had picked him up half dead a year and a half before, and who had been incautious enough to leave his decrepit loft door open some five days ago. His gallant heart still beat, though tired to the point of utter exhaustion, and in his innermost being the love of home and master was the flame that kept him going when he had long since passed the end of his endurance.<BR><BR>

 

Clearing the last hedge with fast failing wings, "Greywings" half folded his pinions in preparation for landing on the roof of his beloved home - only to find that the loft he had flown so many miles to find no longer existed. For a moment or two he fluttered vainly over the spot where his home had been, then with a last desperate spurt he rose to the roof of the house. For a moment or two he clawed there in a failing attempt to hold fast to the frozen surface of the tiled ridge, then - wings flagging - he sprawled and spun back down the slope of the roof, propelled by the angry clutching grasp of the icy wind. Striking the frozen guttering at the edge of the roof, he remained posed for a timeless instant in space, then - hurled over and over by the bitter gusts he was flung to the ground where he lay, spent and tired to the edge of death. Twice he moved his wings as if to fly on again, but when the wind turned him over again to the place where once his loft had stood, "Greywings" was dead. The frozen flakes built up against his thin and wasted body, and it was not until the first sibilant whisper of the southern winds of spring that he finally rested on the carpet of leaves where he was soon to be buried forever.<BR><BR>

 

It was over thirty years later that the cottage again went up for sale, and though it stood empty for some considerable time and grew dilapidated meanwhile, a car stopped by the rustic gate one day and a tall greying man stood erect and studied the place. He was joined by a pleasant looking women, who took his hand in hers while she followed his gaze over the contours of the house and the large overgrown garden. Finally she looked up into his face and smiled, "Well?" she queried. for answer he nodded and smiled, and opening the gate the couple passed inside and toured the perimeter of the cottage. Obviously they approved of what they saw, for only a week later a firm of builders and decorators moved in and industriously proceeded to renovate the old building to some of its former glory. A little later still a furniture wagon stopped by and there was much coming and going with the carpets and furnishings. Eventually the family moved in and the garden rang to the laughter of their two children - a boy of eleven and a girl of some nine years.<BR><BR>

Ian Murdoch, for such was the man's name, was a man of some talents and considerable industry, and before a year had passed he had restored the garden to its flaming splendour, and on the exact spot that Nick Cox had once maintained his loft many years before - he too built himself a loft, rather larger, more modern in design and equipped with a little office in which rested all that was required to make his racing and waiting hours comfortable.<BR><BR>

 

In the spring of the following year, Ian settled three pairs of old birds and in no time at all the loft resounded to the thunderous cooing of the cocks and the squeaking of the youngsters. The weeks quickly slipped by, and one late spring evening Ian and his wife let the youngsters - now rather strong on the wing have their liberty for the first time. For what seemed to be ages the babies pottered about the roof, and now and again one or another would stand on its tiptoes and flail the air with its wings, testing them with nervous eagerness - and lifting themselves a yard into the limitless sky every once in a while. Suddenly, for that unfathomable reason that every fancier has experienced at some time in his life, the whole bunch of youngsters exploded into action and rocketed into the air, all six of his homebred youngsters and the dozen of the same age that he had purchased, were aloft and scattering to every point of the compass. In seconds they were a hundred feet up and spreading away, and with an agonising certainty Ian knew that short of a miracle his hopes were about to be blasted - for that year at least - when from nowhere at all a great blue cock swept round in a circle by the madly panicking babies and with slowly clapping wings he marshalled them into a untidy pack which followed him like sheep. Three times the great blue bird circled, then with his pinions spread he glided downwards in a grand sweep and settled as softly as thistledown on the top of the loft. Ian Murdoch watched with bated breath as all his eighteen youngsters followed suit, and a vast sigh of relief was wrenched from his clenched lips as the last youngster fell onto its face as it landed.<BR><BR>

 

For a moment or two, the strange cock stood poised watching the youngsters - as if to assure himself they were all there - then with strutting step he dropped on to the trap and disappeared into the loft. As one the entire team of youngsters hastened after him, anxious to regain the known safety of their home and perches, and within seconds the last of them had gone through the bob-wires and was busily pecking up the seed that Ian had left in the hopper to welcome them in.<BR><BR>

 

Barely half a minute passed before Ian opened the loft door to see and handle the strange pigeon, but to his astonishment the bird was not there. turning to his wife who had witnessed the entire scene he blurted almost angrily - "That damn bird's gone". She looked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then - "Gone? You mean it's not in the loft? Impossible!" For answer Ian opened the door wide for her to see for herself, but the stranger had unquestionably vanished. The couple searched all the perches and every nestbox, they looked under and over everything- but there was no pigeon in the loft that they did not own, and they had no Barless Blue among their own birds. Puzzled, they eventually returned to the house where they talked over the strange incident until suppertime, and later when they repaired to bed Ian was still muttering to himself about the inexplicable disappearance of the bird.<BR><BR>

 

A couple of months later during the early summer, they were waiting the arrival of their youngsters from a training toss when Ian suddenly started from his chair and pointed heavenwards in alarm, an exclamation of horror on his lips. His wife, who had been sitting with him did not see the ominous shape of the dark winged falcon at first - then she too gave a gasp as understanding flooded her mind. Powerless to do anything about the presence of the predator - for the bird was a peregrine falcon, they stood biting their lips and hoping against hope their youngsters would not arrive until after the huge hawk had gone, but it was not to be and their alarm increased as they saw the neat little pack of young birds appear over the trees a mere couple of hundred yards away. They saw with mounting tension the peregrine turn to face their youngsters, saw his wings close into his body, and Mrs. Murdoch buried her head in her hands as the dark shape bulleted earthwards - then - again from nowhere the vast spreading wings of the Barless Blue appeared as the pigeon soared underneath the falling hawk, and he - turning in his headlong dive - struck with hooked beak and curling talons to scoop up the apparently helpless pigeon, and missed! Turning on to its back the great hawk struck again at the underside of the Blue bird, and missed again and again though it seemed to the observers far below in the garden that he must have hit the pigeon every time. Eventually the pigeon with peregrine close in pursuit disappeared from view, and the youngsters who had dropped hastily onto the the loft trapped with an unaccustomed vigour.<BR><BR>

 

Ian Murdoch was silent for a long while that evening, and intelligent man though he was he failed to find a satisfactory solution to the Blue cock's appearance, again in a moment of dire emergency. He did not dwell too long on the matter though, and with a promptitude that was commendable he soon made the purchase of a shotgun with which to welcome the hawk should it appear again. On a number of occasions that year they had reason to bless the strange pigeon, and once Ian mentioned the matter to a friend who was a journalist, who - sensing perhaps something stranger than fiction was happening - wrote an article on the affair and published it in the county weekly paper. It was in these columns that Nicholas Cox, now in his eighties and in failing health, read the news that gladdened his heart and made him weep tears of joy. Unable to go to his old home to see for himself, the old man wrote to Ian Murdoch - telling him the story of "Greywings" and of his deep conviction that the bird had come home.<BR><BR>

 

Surprised that a previous tenant of the cottage had also owned and raced pigeons to that location, Ian treated the letter with some reserve and just a little misgiving, unsure perhaps that the writer was genuine. The following winter though he and his wife found that truth was indeed stranger than fiction, and that the loves of the fancier and his birds is far stronger and deeper than can ever be understood by mere man.<BR><BR>

 

The wind howled again round the eaves of the old cottage that Christmas Eve, and the snow rustled against the windows and sifted into every crack in a vain attempt to percolate everywhere. Ian Murdoch and his wife stood - arms intertwined round each others' waists - looking out at the gathering dusk when they both started, electrified at what they saw. There, standing by the loft, appeared a grey headed old man, small and bent by the years but clearly visible to each of them. He seemed to have an aura of illumination round him and appeared impervious to the biting wind and driving fine icy flakes, and stood - a smile of joy across his face, arms raised to the sky where, with great grey wings clapping slowly above his head, there appeared the unmistakeable shape of the Barless Blue - also illuminated by the same strange glow that was light and yet not. For timeless seconds the couple watched while the bird settled against the old man's chest, and clearly saw him bend his grizzled head and kiss the pigeon and clasp it to his face - tears of sheer joy running down his lined and aged countenance. For a spellbound eon they watched the image of man and bird together, then suddenly they were gone and only the wind driven snow could be seen beating against the side of the loft.<BR><BR>

 

The Barless Blue was never seen again. Perhaps it was the obituary that appeared in the columns of the county paper later that week that gave the answer, it said quite simply that Nicholas Cox, octogenarian and once resident of their village, had passed quietly away at four o'clock in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Requiescat in Pace.

[buster151]

amazing, I had cold shivers reading that

[Rooster J. Cogburn]

Message for Rooster J.Cogburn . . .

 

If you're going to lift my short stories and publish them elsewhere, you might have the courtesy to add my name as its author, clearly evident since it is listed on a page with my photo on top and the legend "Bilco's Bulletin" below it.

I know it was lifted from that page, because the same typing errors as Reynolds made are also shown in the story you published". Cheers, Bilco.

 

I enjoyed the story and posted it in the hope some others on the site would also.I in no form credited it as my own and did not gain financially in any way.

 

I can only apologise for any offense caused.

[Bilco]

No hard feelings my friend, just niggled because there were typing/spelling errors in it - which I deplore, I always try to get it right - and I did think that the least you could do was to say who wrote it, even if it was written 43 years ago! ATB. Cheers, Bill.

[Rooster J. Cogburn]

No hard feelings my friend, just niggled because there were typing/spelling errors in it - which I deplore, I always try to get it right - and I did think that the least you could do was to say who wrote it, even if it was written 43 years ago! ATB. Cheers, Bill.

 

Good good

 

As long as you know there was no malice intended.

 

I read and enjoyed "Pigeon Gas" as a teenager and still revisit it occasionally

[clockman]

No hard feelings my friend, just niggled because there were typing/spelling errors in it - which I deplore, I always try to get it right - and I did think that the least you could do was to say who wrote it, even if it was written 43 years ago! ATB. Cheers, Bill.

 

Lang may yer lum reek.

[greenlands]

Nice to see you sorted your password Bill and welcome back to the site,hope you visit a lot more .

Your old mate.

Lindsay

[Bilco]

THE PHOENIX LOFT

 

I like visiting fanciers, that's how I started writing articles about them and their pigeons. I find it interesting to meet people, to hear their points of view, their theories and their fads and fancies, and as has been pointed out by better men than I shall ever be - that's the best way to learn anything.

It was due to this incorrigible streak of mine that I came to be meandering down a quiet Kentish lane one mid-December afternoon. I had received an invitation from a member of a little club, on behalf of himself and his fellows, he said, to attend their annual dinner. One of the things I like to do, when I can, is to arrive in the area a bit early, and look around the odd loft or two. If this can be done without letting on that I represent the 'Gazette' in search of interesting characters, so much the better, and usually I am pleased to say I am fortunate in meeting the salt of the earth in their own back gardens, without formality, or fuss. Some lads get just a little unsettled when they know, in advance, that a Press representative is coming and they are keen to make a good impression that they tend to spoil their own natural and characteristic charm. So I don't let on, I drop in unannounced, whenever I can, as I did with the Phoenix loft...

 

I drove the old car round the bend quite slowly, not that I was worried about the traffic but I had seen a kit of pigeons fly across the trees only a minute before. There, just ahead of me, stood one of those old windmills, a tall, gaunt wooden structure, starkly silhouetted against the sun brightened clouds that threatened snow despite the glare of the reflected light. There was a cold snap in the air and when I stepped out of the warm interior of my battered old car, I felt the flesh on my face crinkle with the crisp rake of that frosty day. There was a bunch of pigeons circling the upper storey of that old mill and the white painted dowels of what was obviously a loft, formed the topmost garret. The sails had long since broken and fallen to the ground, but the mill itself looked 'lived in'. There were curtains, clean looking, at the few small windows that were carved out of those wooden walls.

The turf around the base of that towering old building was coarse and springy and in spite of the lateness of the season there was still a good carpet of it, poking through the snow in great tussocks. It struck me as odd, for a moment, that there were no footprints in that pristine mantle but with a shiver beginning to manifest itself, for all the protection of my thick overcoat, I didn't dwell long on mundane matters like this, besides, there were pigeons and fanciers to meet! An old hand-forged knocker, fashioned in the likeness of a Salamander, adorned the heavy oaken door and, aided perhaps by the chill that buffeted my ears, I beat a tattoo that resounded away into the depths of that old building. I hadn't long to wait before a patter of feet which resolved themselves into a firm sounding tread, approached the door from the inside. The timbers creaked a little as that ancient portal opened, and the rosy-cheeked, good looking woman who smiled a welcome at me from within looked every inch a country lass. She had that indefinable grace of a lady about her, a personality that no words ever formed can express but a quality that is recognisable in any species of like anywhere in the world. You see it in horses, pigeons, some breeds of dogs even; Siamese cats often have it and so do those aristocrats of the cattle world, the Jersey cows. Not that I am comparing that charming lady with animals, merely that I am trying to say in my inadequate way that this quality is universal and not confined alone to the inhabitants of stately homes on landed estates. I think the term 'thoroughbred' expresses what I am trying to say, and I hope you know what I mean as I am sure you do.

 

This lady (she later introduced herself as Janet Scott. Call me Jenny, she said) bade me enter when I mentioned pigeons and gesturing towards a sturdily built stairway that led upwards. She allowed me to precede her up through a succession of rooms, all circular in shape, and all diminishing in size, as we progressed to the highest storey where I met her husband, John, who was busily engaged in putting the finishing touches to a very sturdy looking pigeon basket. As I entered that room, John beamed a smile at me, warm, welcoming and faintly inquiring. The smile broadened into a great grin when Janet explained that I was a fancier who had dropped in on passing. A huge hand clasped mine in friendly greeting, and John's personality suffused a sort of atmosphere that fairly broadcast good humour and bonhomie.

 

We fell at once into pigeon talk that ranged far and wide in topic and theory. I cannot remember when I ever met a man so entertaining in all my travels, and I have encompassed the world twice in my 40-yrs and met many, many men of every nationality, colour and creed!

 

The hours slipped away all too quickly and it was with a start that I realised that if I did not make haste I would be late for my dinner engagement. Having supped well on the excellent home-made cakes and ale that would bring tears of joy to the eyes of any connoisseur, I would gladly have dismissed the slightly artificial atmosphere that seems to rule over so many social evenings, but a sense of duty, based as much on allegiance to the 'Gazette' as to the fanciers to whom I had promised my questionable company, bade me make my goodbyes to that happy couple in whose company I had spent such a happy afternoon. Throughout our hours of conversation, the pigeons had crooned and roared in diverse mood, and even as I make my farewell I could hear the deep contented note of one of those great birds - which, though I had gazed on them through the dowelled interior of the mill, I had not handled them. As mine host fetched me my overcoat, from the peg behind the door, I admired again the extremely neat basket he had been making at the entry. Without further ado, John reached across his little work bench and brought forth another basket, finished and polished ready for use. "Take it", he boomed, and thrust it into my hand with a gesture of dismissal that waved away the words I tried to say as I would have enquired the cost. "I make them to keep me busy, and the willows are free for any man who cares to take them form the woods", he added. I was pleased to have it, my own basket (I only had one then) was getting rather shabby and the new one was a beauty and would contain some eight birds in comfort.

 

It was minutes later that we descended to the ground floor again and the glowing warmth that had issued all that afternoon from the healthily burning log fire set in his stone hearth, seemed suddenly far away and in another world. The bitter freezing blast that met us outside made me dash for the lesser cold of the car. The engine started at the touch of the button, and with a last wave at the two figures, still clearly visible at the doorway of their strange but comfortable home, I let in the clutch and hurried away into the black depths of that December night. It took me only 15 minutes to arrive at the brightly lighted door of the village hall, where were gathered the twenty fanciers and their wives and families.

 

The dinner progressed in the usual fashion, as dinners do, and when the plates were cleared away and speeches made by the club's President, Secretary and Treasurer, I was called upon to make the presentation. I like this little chore. It adds enormously to the pleasure of the evening when one can meet and exchange a few words with the members whose success it is that makes these events possible. As was expected of me, I said a few words which, though echoed by the prize givers almost everywhere, I sincerely meant. I enjoy these little do's, you know.

 

It suddenly occurred to me that it was strange that John and Janet Scott were not present. I remarked on it to that assemblage. I explained that I had met them that afternoon, and that I found them to be such congenial company, and it began to dawn on me, as I spoke, that there was a hush that was odd (and into which my words dropped as if they were stones falling into a bottomless void). I sat down to a silence that was almost deathly in its intensity, and it was not until a guffaw of laughter broke from one of those present that anyone stirred at all. He who laughed, roared at the top of his voice, and so contagious was his humour that smiles began to crease the faces of those who sat around him, "Good old Bilco", he bellowed. "I've read your tales in the 'Gazette' and I enjoys 'em, but beggared if I ever heard one like that", he continued. As he burst afresh into further laughter, accompanied by his pointing finger at the faces of those, still serious around him, everyone there erupted into a roar of mirth. Relief, too, was apparent on some of their countenances. That laughter continued for quite a few minutes, and the clubs' Secretary bawled into my ear that he never expected to hear me tell them their own local 'Ghost' tale, one that had been heard told by the locals for many, many years.

Well, I drove past that old mill again the following day. There were only a few blackened timbers, stark and gaunt against the lowering sky, to show that once there had been a fine, strongly built edifice there, once the home of a fancier family named Scott - the local woodsman, a family who had perished on Christmas Eve some 50-yrs before, burnt to death as they tried to rescue their pigeons from the all consuming flames. I had the details related to me by the fancier who had first brought me to that part of Kent, and who provided me with a comfortable bed that December 23rd night when the frosts of winter crackled round the eaves and nipped the toes.

 

All this happened many years ago now, and seems sometimes like a dream, but there is something that makes it hard for me to believe I imagined it. My basket! It serves me excellently, has done for ages, but you know, even after all the knocking about that it gets in the course of a season, it seems new again when I take it out to look at it, or brush it up after Christmas. If I did imagine it, where did I get the basket from? I'm damned if I can remember!

[andy Burgess]

Another "cracking" good read .

[buster151]

brilliant keep em coming lol

[Guest Tooshy Boy]

A GOOD READ THANKS MATE.///

[just ask me]

enjoying the read :emoticon-0137-clapping:

[Bilco]

GRAN'DAD'S PIED

 

"Poor old Gran'dad", mused Gerry, reading for perhaps the third time the letter that had brought the news of his father's sire. "Poor old man, he was a nice old character", he added, turning to his wife, who sat knitting across the room from him. He sighed and folded the letter away, tucking it in to a space behind a large old vase that stood atop the broad mantleshelf. "S'pose we'd better see about going up there for the old lad's funeral. Can't let the old fellow be buried without paying our last respects".

 

His pretty young wife nodded, lips moving silently as she counted the stitches on her needles. Finally she put the budding jacket down and eyed her spouse languidly, "I can't go", she said, gesturing at her expanding waist line, where her advancing pregnancy manifested itself. "No good me tearing about the country like this", she added with a smile. Gerry nodded again, and with a faraway look in his eyes, recounted the days when as a lad he had watched his grandfather time in many a good pigeon in some of the toughest competition that the Up North Combine had to offer. His wife only half listened to him, as she had heard the stories of grandfather's legendary prowess many times, and truth to tell, her mind was on the future rather than the past.

Gerry mused on, talking with his lilting Northumbrian accent of days long past, when his grandparent had been a name to conjure up visions of fame and fortune, days when his mining kinfolks had staked their entire weekly income on the result of a match between two birds from points ranging in distance from a mere mile to a marathon of 600 miles. Grandfather had been the very epitome of the Northumbrian miner, always neatly dressed, his clay pipe always sticking out from his mouth like the bowsprit of some clipper, his merry eyes always a'twinkle amid the numerous scars that had pitted his face, testimony to the fragments of coal that had exploded against the skin at some time of another - the trade mark of almost every miner, everywhere. He always wore great hobnailed boots, both defense and attack if a fight arose.

 

Grandfather had been a legend in his own time and few had dared take him on when at his prime. In recent years, however, his fame declined, probably as a result of a reduced income which had prevented him from participating as he had done in bygone years, though he had maintained his loft right up to his death, a mere two days before the point in time at which we have interested ourselves in his story.

 

So it transpired that Gerry set out the following day from his home in the south of England, where he had exiled himself following the disastrous decline of the coal-mining industry which had been his early employment, a following that had claimed his father and grandfather in the industrially expanding area of Tyneside. Grandfather had lived a ripe old 90 years and until the day of his death had maintained himself in the slightly stiff, almost arrogant manner of the Tyneside miner. An independent man, proud, aloof with strangers, a man who lived hard, worked hard, in the brief hours that had been his leisure when a working man, had played hard at the sport of the mining folk. Wrestling, rowing, running, racing whippets and pigeons, drinking aye and singing too as well as any chorister.

 

Now the old man was dead and with him the end of an era when men had lived as men, pitting their strengths against the cold, dark and often dangerous narrow seams of coal a mile below the ground. Not for him had been the machinery, the light and modern methods of mining dictated by the advance of science. Not for him had been the chromium plate, the steaming showers, the well-furnished canteen. Not for him had been the smooth drive to work in a modern car. Rather he had dragged his feet through the darkness, the cold and wet of pre-dawn across the cobbled and tarred alleys between the rows of dingy ribbon houses, and in silence of a company of men who lived most of their lives in the blackness of the underground, he had descended, cold and uncomfortable, into the depths, so that Britain might lead the world in the might of its industry, driven by the power unlocked from the coal so hardly hewn from the very bowels of the earth.

 

And now grandfather was dead and Gerry, his 30 years-old grandson, journeyed north to the land that gave him birth, to bury the old man and to offer a few words of comfort to his aged grandmother who lived even yet in her 91st year.

 

After the funeral, as was the custom with those hardy folk, the members of the family all gathered to the home of their departed one and bolstered themselves with food and drink, talking heartily and loudly, perhaps as much to hide their very real grief as to make themselves heard above the hubbub, for there were many of them. By nightfall however, most of them had gone their various ways, save only the few who had travelled far. Gerry's cousins, Bob and John, and their wives and children were among those remaining and soon only Gerry stayed awake with his grandmother, for she, despite her age, refused to sleep and stared silently into the depths of the great coal fire that burned upon the hearth she had tended for so long, remembering perhaps the 70 years she had lived in that small and cramped miner's home with her now dead consort.

 

Finally, as midnight tolled its noisesome bell from the local Methodist chapel, the old lady rose from her ancient, battered and comfortable chair and let herself out into the darkness of the small yard at the rear of her home. Five minutes later she returned and in her hand she carried a pigeon, a medium sized, bold looking Cheq Pied cock and without a word she handed the bird to Gerry. "For me"? queried her grandson and on receiving a nod he proceeded to examine the bird, a strongly built pigeon with fire in his eye, shoulders like a veritable tarzan and plumage like silk. At length the old lady spoke, "Your granda bred that one special", she said, her strong Northumbrian accent clipping the words out. "Mind now, look after it ma bairn, thur's na mair like't", and so saying she turned slowly on her slippered heel and made her way across to the curtained alcove that hid her bed. Gerry rummaged in the adjoining kitchen for a cardboard box and on finding a suitable one, punctured it liberally with holes and placed the bird in it for the night, then, that task completed, he repaired to the old divan that was to be his bed for the night.

 

On the morrow, Gerry bade his relatives farewell and with the Pied cock safely tucked away in a small basket loaned to him by an uncle who still lived nearby, he returned to the south of England to his waiting wife and home. The following Spring, Gerry offered the Pied cock both a mate and his freedom and the bird accepted both with the same attitude and manner that the mining folk who bred him would have done, with arrogance, as a rightful due, as an expected and accepted procedure. He stayed, reared two nests of excellent youngsters and learned with thoroughness every detail of the surrounding countryside. Gerry's son was born that year at about the same time that the cock was allowed his freedom and as Gerry's wife had a hard time at the birth, the bird had no basket training. As a two year-old however, the bird joined the ranks with all the other birds and was trained to the south coast, a distance of 100 miles, several times. He had one race in which he finished 2nd Club and that winter was eyed many times as a potential candidate for the following season's Nationals.

 

At the next year's Christmastime, Gerry's wife announced with dimpled pleasure that she was expecting their second child and laughingly Gerry begged for her not to deliver the infant on the day of the National, for, as he pointed out, she'd have to wait until he had clocked his bird before attending to her. The couple engaged in a mock battle over this and with a great show of pretended annoyance, Gerry's wife averred that she was quite sure that this was exactly what her spouse would do. How strange are the chances of fortune, how capricious is Fate, for on the very day that 5,000 of the cream of British racing pigeons were released on the quayside of San Sebastian, so too did Gerry's wife commence her labour pains and National or no National, nothing would have stirred Gerry from his wife's side, for he well remembered her difficulties with their first son's birth.

 

At noon that warm and sunny day, Wendy, Gerry's wife, was wracked with pain and obviously in need of hospital over three miles away and Gerry went with her, forgetting completely that this was Grand National day and that he stood as good a chance as any of clocking the Pied cock, now a magnificent bird, fit and strong and carrying a small fortune in pools.

 

The day wore on and early that evening Wendy was delivered of her second son. Gerry stayed with her until almost 9 p.m. then, having seen that both his wife and son were well, comfortable and asleep, he returned to his now empty house, his other little son being cared for by a kindly neighbour.

 

As he entered the silent room of his home, Gerry noted that something was missing, but what it was he could not tell. It took him almost 10 minutes to fathom out was that the missing article was his pigeon clock which had stood on the mantleshelf and with a start he rushed out into the garden where, in the now fast fading twilight his neighbour was racking together the remains of a little bonfire, the smoke spiralling heavenwards almost vertically. Hastily Gerry explained to the man that all was now well at the hospital, then, before he could broach the subject of his missing clock, the neighbour commenced to congratulate him, first on the birth of the baby, then on the arrival of the pied cock.

 

Dismay spread across Gerry's face like a thundercloud! He had entirely forgotten the race and his first question was at what time the bird had arrived - and on receiving the answer that the pigeon had dropped at 8.45 that evening, he groaned aloud in despair, for it was now past 9.30p.m. Bemoaning the tragedy of missing the chance of timing in a potential National winner, Gerry stumbled to the loft front and gazed in at the smudge of white that marked where the Pied cock stood on his nestbox front.

 

Then without further ado, he flung the loft door open and switched on the light so that he could at least see the bird if nothing else. At once he noticed the clock standing in the centre of the loft floor and knowing that he had not left it there, he snatched it up - to gaze with unbelieving eyes at the cylinder marked 2 showing, and at the unmistakable print showing the time 8.44.25 that evening on the paper ribbon, clearly visible in the little glass window. A second later, Gerry picked up the Pied cock and looked at his legs. One of them bore a clean red rubber, the other was as the day bird had been born, thus indicating that the second rubber was indeed the clock.

 

With a terrific whoop of delight, Gerry rushed from the loft and hurled himself at his neighbour, thanking him profusely for timing the bird in and in the same breath asking if any telegram had been despatched to the N.F.C. secretary. The man shook his head in the negative, "I didn't time him", he said. "It was some little feller who walked in here at above five minutes before the bird arrived. He took the key from under the mat, went into the house and came out again with the clock, then walked down the loft and opened the door just as the bird arrived". He stopped, seeing the puzzlement on Gerry's face. "Didn't you arrange this then"? he asked and on seeing Gerry's vigorous shake of the head, he shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment.

 

"Never seen this old feller before" he went on. "Looked about 80-odd to me, has a little old clay pipe stuck in his teeth and wore a muffler round his neck, even in this weather. Come to think of it", he added, "I had a look at him as he passed me, and he had a lot of blue marks all over his face, just like that one you've got on your forehead". He stopped then, noting the wonderful broad grin spreading right across Gerry's face. "Ah! You've remembered now haven't you"? he asked.

Gerry nodded, glancing at his watch to see if he still had time to get the necessary telegram away. "Aye, good old granddad" , he yelled, already sprinting towards the gate and the telephone box a mere 50 yards away. "Good old granddad", he echoed, roaring with delighted laughter!

[THE FIFER]

good Bill :emoticon-0137-clapping:

[buster151]

another good read

[Guest Tooshy Boy]

WELLDONE AGAIN MATE.///