James Flockhart Tranent 1926/1988

[1967]

The membership of the Scottish National Flying Club increased in the East due certainly to more of them cashing in on the prize list.The war curtailed channel racing and Dr William Anderson bought all my fathers channel birds including the first round of youngsters.

I remember too that all fanciers had to join the N.P.S. (NATIONAL PIGEON SERVICE)if they wanted to purchase corn you had to breed eight youngsters for the Army and Air Force for every eight you bred ,you received 1cwt ,of corn,that was the only way you were allowed to keep pigeons.

I joined the signals Corp, in 1940 and my father kept at that time 12 pairs of young birds.I went to Dundee and did my eight weeks training at Creif in Perthshire and later at Dufftown.Our division being 9th Highland, reserve for 51st Division.While at Dufftown we were made up of 51st Highland Devision as most of the original 51st were captured at Dunkirk.It was in Inverness that i first came across the Pigeon Service,we were in the cook-house having a late meal after working many hours laying lines,when three signalmen came in looking for a meal.They had been sent up to our Division asPigeoneers with a 1914 loft full of birds.This immediately intrested me.and quickly made arrangements with the loft sergeant to see the birds On seeing through the loft i applied for a transfer to the pigeon service,but through the Army channels this could take upto a year. I wrote home telling my father all about it and at one of the Delegate meetings in Glasgow he mentioned it to Dr Anderson who was delegate for west Lothian. He then advised that i write to a Mr Selby Thomas the National Homing Secretary of Gloucester telling him that the Dr had recommended me.Within a month my transfer was through and i was posted to the holding unit in Aldershot.I had to sit a written test under the supervision of Major Aukroyd and Sergeant Hammond and Alex King of Wishaw who was in charge of the loft at Aldershot.

.After the test was complete i was told by Bill Hammond that i didn't need a handling test of the birds.About one month later we were made up as a unit for Northern Ireland.We arrived at a football field next to CrumlinJail called Girewood Park,from their was posted to Armagh Barracks with a loft of birds my job was instructing soldiers in different Units.Welinked up with birds as last line of communication.This proved to be a great personal experience for me,i met a lot of great fanciers during this period A E Robinson J M K McGugan John Jack I.H.U. Secretary Greer Galway.They organised shows for the charity and i was asked to judge at them and had some enjoyable nights with the irish fanciers,and being a scot, they would give me anything A E Robinson gifted me two hens .I got another two from J McGugan and they were introduced as crosses to our birds,which did well.When the second front was about to be launched we were sent back to Holding Unit at Aldershot to re-group and kit-out for the D Day landing in France.We eventually arrived in France and moved up behind the troops as they pushed through the Falaise Gap. We finished up in a football field in Brussels which had high poplar trees all around it.We were training one of our lofts of pigeons for night flying and we had them homing in complete darkness from 12 miles , there only sign on mous-trap loft was a sall red light.

From there we moved to a village outside Eindhoven called Keldrop,we trained the birds from there to as far as the Red Caps would let us go to Mimegan Bridge over the Rhine,prior to the bridge falling.From there we made our way in to Bad-Salzuffelin in West Phalliax,and that was it the war was over.

The last six months was a drag waiting to be demobbed.In march i was home for the start of the season 1946, demob suit and all.That same suit is still worn by Jim Renwick to this day or is it''smokey''?

The Scottish National did not compete from France in 1946 but a race from Hastings was organised .We trained a red cheq cock for this race and as i was confident of its capabilities i had a few pound on him.He didnt let me down and was 9th Open into Scotland winning £162 the next year Rennes St Jaques was the race point chosen by the S.N.F.C.The birds were flown from London Airport and were eventually liberated at 10am on the Friday in a North West wind and heavy rain at night at the home end .So it was an early rise for my father my brother and his pal and myself.We were up waiting as early as 4.30am.My mother had breakfast ready at 7.30am and we could only go in two at a time.Father and i were first,we scarcely got seated at the table when we heard footsteps running towards the door with shouts ''its a bird James''i ran like mad to find my brother trying to put the bird in by cane to the wrong section of the loft on seeing this i took the cane and put him along the verandah and into his correct section.When i went to take the birds rubber of i could see it had been sitting in a field of clay over night.I couldnt see the ring,and in my haste to get it off i broke it in two and in these days we had to take inside and outside rubber ring numbers to put on the verification card which we had to post to the secretary.In my excitement i couldn't peice the ring but my brother took over and duly noted the numbers then timed it in.Also in these days we had to send telegram within hour of bird being clocked.we finished 2nd Open in race,winning £362. We had won over £400 altogether that season and my father asked what i was going to do with the money.90% of it was mine as i had pooled the Red Cock (EXPECTED). My two brothers had a couple of fivers on birds from Rennes so i decided to split the money four ways,giving us £100 each .My father and i decided to put £20 each into a fund and any birds that we sold and the income from the same would as well,for the next ten years the pigeons kept themselves,Certainly we couldn't afford to keep them from our wages.

1948 saw the S.N.F.C. Race from Guernsey,the following year it was Charleroi(France)which was to the East and most birds came up over the North sea,we lost our good bird(EXPECTED)in this one but managed to time in another pied cock at 4,45am next morning.We only sent two birds to each channel event,our performances were very encouraging and when you consider we had taken top positions like2nd Dol 2nd Rennes 3rd 5th and 6thNantes it could be said our results were outstanding.

[andy Burgess]

another great read

[maverick]

great stuff and great results looking forward to more

[eastcoaster]

Fantastic reading , coming from east lothian the name flockart has always been connected with doo`s.

canny wait on the next bit .

[buster151]

good read

[Rooster J. Cogburn]

[ALF]

:emoticon-0137-clapping:

[1967]

:emoticon-0137-clapping:

[1967]

Regarding the 1947 Snfc result post

[greenbar]

Very good read,

[Johnleg]

THIS WHAT THE SNFC IS ALL ABOUT, TERRIFIC READ. MORE PLEASE,