James Flockhart Tranent 1926/1988

February 1, 2013

Members of our Federation(East Of Scotland) have been very succesful through the years. Neil Campbell won Rennes in 1947 eith White Dawn.Joe Hodgson of Drem won the Rennes race in 1955.John Ross won it in 1969,the following year the Knox Bros won it with''summerfield princess''.Eddie won it in 1981.Jimmy Jackson of Haddington also had the Honour of winning our blue riband of pigeon racing.Jimmy Clydesdale of Ormiston won the Nantes rsce in 1955 five years on and it was F Trezbriek of Dunbar who took this 600 miler 1985 saw Davidson & Little of Cockenzie win with Five times a lady.Jim Brunton of Dunbar won Averanches with True Grit in 1975 ,and five years later Eddie Newcombe won Averanches, in fact, he took the first tree positions.Alex Forbes of Prestonpans won Sartilly 1 Woof &Thompson,Sartilly 2 Tom McEwan did it in 1985.The Young Bird National was won by the Knox Bros from Redditch in 1977. John Bosworth also won this event as did A McEwan Eddie Newcombe and as recent as 1987 it was Jim Scott from Ormiston.That makes it 21 wins in National races which i'm sure would compare to any Federation in Scotland.

After father died and the birds got poisoned we were left with a small team and subsequently had to do a rebuilding exercise.Wilf,my young brother,was left with the loft at New Winton and i started with my good son with a ten foot loft which still exsists today.I got seven late-breds and two old birds down from the old loft and these are the origination of my team.In 1969 i bred a blue cock that went on to fly the channel no fewer than 14 times,always doing it in race time.In his last year of racing he acheived in competing in three distance events, Rennes,Nantes and Averanches and timing at 6.59pm on the first time from one of them.His sons and daughters have all done well from the channel,one of his daughters crossed the channel six times before i retired it.It was given up to my brother to put to stock as i had no room for stock birds.Amonth later he gifted it to Charlie Dickson of Dunbar Charlie phoned me to say he was going to break her.She came back to me but i kept chasing her.For three days she sat on my house roof and on the third i chased her again ,and i could see her heading eastwards to Dunbar and that was her broken she was the grandam to Charlies 5th Open Rennes in 1987. He also got a blue cock and a blue hen from Wilf that were breeding winners The New Winton birds did Charlie a power of good,and played a prominent part in winning Scotlands own fancier of the year award.

One of the best distance lofts in Scotland was Donaldson Bros Jimmy & John both now deceased were proper gentlemen, and still remember them sending father a telegram of congratulations on the occasion of winning all over the country and their own pigeons carried the name Lammermoor something or another,after of,course,the Lammermoor Hills just south of our Federation.

Another good family of pigeon fanciers were the Nisbets of Trannent Wull ,Johnny and their father Bob Wull was christened ''The Dol King'' as he exccelled at that race point year after year.John Nisbet also had some outstanding pigeons from Rennes and Nantes,and his son Robbert now residing in Pencaitland is keeping up the name Nesbit by winning 6th Open Nantes in 1987.

In our club at the moment we have Tom McLeod,my next door neighbour,he is a hard man to beat in every channel race,any race for that matter,year after year.His winnings for eight years are over Â£10.000 not bad going is it,?On the other side of me is John Bell who is another great fancier . Ican remember his father as a boy giving John Hay of Macmerry a hand over to Winton carrying the basketin the early thirties.He later became a succesful fancier in Trannent L.H.S.young John started up himself and has put up some outstanding performances such as 3rd Open Averanches and 10th Open Rennes and is in this years very hard to beat as is Tom McLeod.In conclusion i must say i have met many good people through the pigeons and would recommend any youngster to take up the hobby.Also let me say when you posses the finest pigeons trained to perfection,you must expect them to fail at sometime through no fault of their own.It is then that you must carry on and try even harder to achieve your ambitions.Once you reached your goal you must not slacken off.Results are not achieved wiyhout hard work by both the fancier and his pigeons.But the rewards are there for those who try and succeed in this most frustrating and yes , the most satisfying of sports.

There was one race left when Jimmy Flockhart finalised this article and i'am happy to say that he himself won 7th Open from Sartilly 2 with a Red Pied Hen her sire was a Mealy Cock .It flew the channel six times,winning in Averanches and Rennes from his late fathers old strain.Dam was one of Bobby Caruthers stock hens,winner of the Sartilly 2 race was yet another East Of Scotland Federation member, none other than Harry Harper formerly of London and now Dunbar, with little emma three quarter Busschaert and Krauth.JIM RENWICK

ALF · February 1, 2013

andy Burgess · February 1, 2013

another great read , some local and historic names amongst them . :emoticon-0137-clapping:

eastcoaster · February 1, 2013

Old Joe Hodgson was the very first man i got doo`s from as a 13 yr old and always told me they would score at the channel and dark cheq hen 4139 scored out of rennes , i waited from midday on day of lib and up again 3 oclock in the morning praying for her to come home ,timed her at 10,30am and was on the result but i thought i had won the national ,that one pigeon ingrained the doo`s on me forever.

andy Burgess · February 1, 2013

Old Joe Hodgson was the very first man i got doo`s from as a 13 yr old and always told me they would score at the channel and dark cheq hen 4139 scored out of rennes , i waited from midday on day of lib and up again 3 oclock in the morning praying for her to come home ,timed her at 10,30am and was on the result but i thought i had won the national ,that one pigeon ingrained the doo`s on me forever.

well done that man eh :emoticon-0137-clapping: