Rooster J Cogburn Column

[Rooster J. Cogburn]

The 2012 season could have easily provided good reason to report on the loft of J & I Alston, seeing as it was one of only two in the country to successfully clock in ALL Scottish National Flying Club races -going on to win their respective Section and Region Averages. Yes, 2012 was a good year for the Alston loft lifting a number of the principle trophies in Section E and the West Region of the SNFC and making a bit of history in the process. Jock’s performance from the club’s longest race, Niort, saw a SNFC first with him actually having the only pigeon in race time into the West Region, a game pigeon indeed.

Jock Alston receiving the West Region Average trophy from SNFC President Phil Lynch

This being said I’m glad I waited until 2013 as once again the Ravenstruther loft was to the fore and wrote itself yet another chapter in the history books of the SNFC. J & I Alston now join the few, a number of Scottish pigeon racing’s all-time greats, to have won the West Region four times in cross channel competition. They are now in the company of-the Burrells and the Mitchells of Douglas Water, Jock Allan of Symington, Jim Hannah of Blantyre, George & Gareth Rankin of Blantyre(now Larkhall), Davy Donaldson of Glassford and Mr & Mrs Elliot of Newbigging. In the process of doing so Jock has enjoyed racing many of the UK’s outstanding pigeons.

 

J & I Alston, Raventruther

 

1st West Region 12th Open Niort 1989 (662miles)

 

1st West Region 17th Open La Ferte Bernard 2004 (551miles)

 

1st West Region 8th Open Niort 2012 (662miles)

 

1st West Region 2nd Open Clermont 2013 (508miles)

 

Add to this numerous 2nd and 3rd positions in the region and SNFC open positions in the top 1-2%, it’s easy to see why Jock has gained the reputation as one of the West regions most consistent long distance racers. Jock was brought up in an environment where pigeon racing was difficult to avoid; the place being Douglas Water, a village in Lanarkshire to the west of Tinto hill and at a time when pigeon racing in the UK and the Scottish National Flying club were on the ascent. A small mining village in geographical size but a giant of a place in terms of long distance racing pigeons, Jock was raised here amongst many fanciers we now view as legends in the game. In fact his first pigeons shared the skies with those of the Burrell Brothers, a record breaking partnership whose finest moments in racing arguably came in 1939 from the great Rennes Gold Cup race. From four pigeons sent Johnny (Jake) Burrell took the following open positions 3rd,15th, 24th and 89th winning a sum that when calculated into today’s value equates to £23,324 plus the pennies.

 

Jock recalls being around 11 or 12 years old and still at school when he and four other lads in his class first took an interest in pigeons. One of these happened to be Keith Burrell, Jake’s son. Keith’s time in pigeons wasn’t as permanent as his fathers, as this proved to be his first and last season, when he decided to part with the birds Jock was given a pair bred by his father. Although not relevant in today’s team of pigeons this is one of the memories Jock has from his growing up amongst these fanciers.

 

This brings us on to another of the great Douglas Water fanciers whose company Jock kept, Tommy Boswell. Tommy was a cousin of the Burrell Brothers and he too had a great record from Rennes in the SNFC but it was the story of Jock’s first race win that interested me. It was the last young bird race from Kirkham in the boy’s maiden season that saw him win the club and finish 2nd Lanarkshire Federation to a pigeon in Morningside. This after Jock had run a mile and half along the railway line to time into the clock of Tommy Boswell. Strange to think now, as when I was at Jock’s house earlier this month he showed me how he had adapted his stall traps for the ETS.

 

Another of the great racing families in the village at this time and the most influential in Jock and Isabel’s loft were the Mitchells. I have a Rennes result from 1955, yellow with age, which shows Mitchell & Son 4th open with a red hen. Many successes were to follow Jimmy Mitchell when racing in partnership with his brother, the greatest of which has to be the loft’s performance from Rennes in 1973- 1st West Section, 2nd open with a chequer hen named ‘Nancy’s Pride’, this when the Gold Cup winner was timed into Coldingham and the wind that day was blowing strong from the west. It was when Jock started work in Douglas Water Colliery he really got in tow with Jimmy Mitchell, the pair enjoyed many Saturday nights in the Douglas Water Miner’s club(I’ve been told not all of them were memorable) and they shared a great friendship right up until Jimmy’s untimely death in 1979. It was birds from Jimmy that got Jock and Isabel on the right track when it came to clocking from France and these lines can still be traced in the loft today. On Jimmy’s passing the sport lost one of its great fanciers and Jock one of his greatest friends. Jock took on the responsibility of organising the dispersal sale of the Mitchell pigeons and the interest in the auction was testament to the quality of pigeons on offer, many of which went on to great success in the hands of their new owners.

 

The fancier who could perhaps be attributed with starting the village’s lasting interest in SNFC racing went by the name of Davie Davidson or ‘Loggie’ as he was better known. When still a young man and after a relatively short spell in the sport ,this fancier was scoring from the French race points back in the mid-1920s and came close to winning a national outright on several occasions over the course of his time in pigeons; including 3rd Open Rennes 1925,3rd Open Nantes 1938 and 2nd Open Beauvais 1963. This loft from Douglas Water and in the latter days, Rigside left behind a number of pigeons to make their mark on the teams of many the West’s most successful racers.

 

Douglas Water as well as being home to the aforementioned multiple West Region winning fanciers, also produced one of the greatest lofts to have never won it, this being the Leishman family. These canny doo men were never out the national results, year after year, scoring top section and open positions as well as being past winners of the legendary Lanarkshire Social Circle Gold Cup. One of their biggest winners was a red chequer hen 4323 ‘Holm Lass’, bred in 1949. In three successive Rennes races she won the following open positions 37th, 50th and 25th and pools which in today’s money is around £18,860. Jock had always kept regular contact with Peter Leishman , until during the compilation of this report Peter’s friends and family were saddened to hear the news of his passing at 92 years of age. Peter was known to his peers as not only a super pigeon fancier but a gentleman of the sport.

 

I’ve only mentioned the most ‘famous’ fanciers in the village, however one thing Jock touched on was how at that time all the fanciers in Douglas Water were extremely dedicated to the pigeons. There was nothing fancy; beans were fed in jelly jars half-filled with cement and empty beer bottles were hung above drinkers on a piece of string to stop the birds using them as a bath, but the lofts were kept spotlessly clean and the work even the lesser known fanciers put into their birds at this time was tremendous. He also talked about the high level of sportsmanship and cooperation amongst the men, in the closed season when the sexes were parted the whole village would let their cocks out on say for instance a Monday, then Tuesday would be the day for the hens and so on. As a youngster Jock received great encouragement from a fancier named Bobby Laurie. Many hours were spent in Bobby’s summer seat enjoying his company and listening to him talk about pigeons. It was when talking of Bobby; Jock told me he wishes he had a photo of the man, as in hindsight, this wee man smoking his pipe in the summer seat was quite comical. Bobby’s small loft, which housed around 8 pairs of pigeons, was always in great order partly due to the fact that no sooner had he finished painting it than he’d start again.

 

I could listen to Jock talk all day about catching strays in Peebles High Street when visiting his granddad and telling stories of the Douglas Water fanciers, but now a bit more on the pigeons and successes of Jock and Isabel Alston.

 

Jock’s pigeon days in and around Douglas Water ended when he was 16, although Jock never lost interest in the birds he started working in the local mine when he left school which of course was hard work and a big commitment. It was in this period without the pigeons that Jock met his wife Isabel. Isabel was no stranger to pigeons as local to her home in Kirkfieldbank there were a few keen doomen. As a newlywed couple they stayed with Isabel’s parents initially before setting up home in Lanark. No pigeons were raced to this location as the house there had nowhere suitable to keep them, however in 1965 a property took the partner’s fancy back in Isabel’s home town of Kirkfieldbank. It was on moving here and having the luxury of a spacious back garden a loft was duly erected and the couple were back in the sport. Kirkfieldbank Club was joined in 1966 with the partnership choosing to join the SNFC in 1968. Success at the distance came not too long afterwards as it was in 1970 when the loft scored its first prize from Rennes. Jock remembers sitting in the rain on the second morning all that depressed way us pigeon men get then all of a sudden the bird hit the loft to take 150th West Section. This would be the first of many as you’re hard pushed to find a season since where the Alston name hasn’t featured in the national results.

 

Jock and Isabel had many happy times in Kirkfieldbank; it was here they raised their own family, a son and a daughter, before moving to Ravenstruther in 1996. Racing the pigeons into Kirkfieldbank the couple won literally dozens of SNFC diplomas from the great race points - Rennes, Nantes, Sartilly and Avranches. In 1977 in one of the best attended races in the history of the club the loft took 15th Open Rennes against 7476 birds. At this location and after a relatively short time back in the sport J & I Alston were gaining a reputation as one of the most consistent lofts in the west. This consistency was rewarded in 1989 when from Niort a distance of 662miles the teams ‘Fairview Lady’ took top honours winning 1st West Section 12th Open, a superb performance. The following season this same blue hen was to take 8th West Section 49th Open from the same race point. When in conversation with Jock it’s obvious how passionate he is about the longest race within the SNFC programme and his great record from 600+miles over the years really reflects this.

 

The original foundation of these early successes came from gift birds and eggs from the earlier mentioned Mitchells Bros. Jock has asked me to pay a fitting acknowledgement to Jimmy Mitchell who, as well as being one of his closest companions in and out of pigeons, really put him on the right lines when it came to working the birds with the cross channel distance events in mind. Jock and Isabel like a lot of fanciers briefly entertained theories such as eyesign, wing etc. but when asked about it now Jock told me what Jimmy Mitchell told him “if you look for faults, you’ll find themâ€. With this in mind the quality of the Alston pigeons and the results are based on work and performance via the race basket. The Mitchell Brothers pigeons were obtained from another Kirkfieldbank fancier who went by the name of Willie Muir, a butcher by profession whose loft housed superb examples of the Dr Anderson Bricoux Sions, these birds were terribly successful at the time and the number of winning pigeons in Scotland down through these lines through the years would be nigh on impossible to determine.

 

On to a man called Fred Jubb now and Jock actually got into contact with him when staying with Isabel in her parent’s house in Kirkfieldbank. With Fred staying in the adjacent block of houses and having a pigeon loft in the garden it was only natural the young man from Douglas Water would take up his acquaintance. Fred worked with Willie Muir mentioned in the previous paragraph, but it’s not through this that he’s relevant in the development of the Alston pigeons. Once Jock and Isabel were settled into their own home back in Kirkfieldbank, Jock and Fred would frequently train the birds together. Chatting on the way to one of their training destinations Jock asked Fred where examples of the older families of birds like those of the Mitchells and Willie Muir could be obtained. It was then Fred pointed him in the direction of Frank Souness from Dunbar. Taking Fred’s advice on board one day Jock travelled to the home of Frank with the hope of introducing himself. The pair took an instant like to each other and from here Jock was able to obtain the type of pigeon he was after and share Frank’s friendship up until his last days. Jock and Isabel adored Frank, who was known as a bit of a comedian and had the pair in stitches at times. Frank Souness was a man who in his own words “spent most of his life looking up a horses arseâ€. Frank was a plough man you see and spent the majority of his working life on farms. He was viewed by those who knew him as a one off. I’ve seen his sense of humour and outlook on life described as an inspiration to all who knew him. Jock and Isabel would look forward to his weekly phone call, usually around half seven on a Sunday night and he wouldn’t usually stay on past eight so as not to miss the start of his favourite programme - Heartbeat. On one of my visits to Jock’s he showed me an old picture of Frank riding his bicycle through the streets of Dunbar well into his 90s. Jock speaks very fondly of Frank, one of the great characters, a man he is thankful to have met and will always remember. A more genuine and generous man you’ll never meet.

 

Frank Souness

Frank’s talents as a pigeon fancier can’t be over looked either; racing to a small two section loft, through the gaps in which you could see the cows in the field behind, he put up some outstanding performances including 1st East of Scotland Combine Guernsey and 2nd open SNFC Niort. His birds consistently came to the fore on hard days and with the Alston pigeons still containing this blood it explains a lot.

 

To add to the Mitchell and Souness pigeons obtained by Jock & Isabel another noteworthy introduction story starts back in the mid-1930s. A pigeon called ‘Young Townfoot’, the last remaining son at the time of Davie Angus of Symington’s SNFC Rennes 1962 gold Cup winning cock ‘Townfoot Goodboy III’. It was on November the 14th 1936 in the loft of Dr Anderson of Armadale that a young Davie Angus selected what was to become his foundation pair. The first choice was a blue hen that went onto to be known as ‘The old Angus hen’. Both this hen’s sire and dam were bred in Jolimont, Hainaut, Belgium in the lofts of Dr Arthur Bricoux. The second pigeon selected that day was a mealy cock that descended from pigeons Dr Anderson obtained from Bricoux’s French counterpart Monsieur Paul Sion. At the time of Davie’s visit to the good Doctor’s another well-known fancier of that time was present in Fred Marriot. On inspecting the pair Davie had chosen Marriot informed him he believed he had picked the best two youngsters Dr Anderson had on offer that day. This shared opinion proved to be quite profound indeed as these pigeons left a dynasty of winners in the Symington loft including ‘Townfoot Goodboy II’ 1st West Section 4th Open Rennes, ‘Townfoot Rose’ 1st West Section 2nd open Nantes then the outright national winner ‘Townfoot Goodboy III’. At this time Louis Massarella was interested in buying a number of the top long distance pigeons in the UK so he duly approached Mr Angus to go about buying his Rennes winner. The price offered was £500; Davie Angus was a shrewd character and was aware that a previous SNFC winner had gone down to Leicester for the same price. The hint was dropped that if Louis were to make a Scottish record bid the pigeon would be his. ‘Townfoot Goodboy III’ was sold for £600. Years later Jock Alston asked Davie Angus how the bird was transported down to Louella, expecting maybe a chauffeur driven vehicle had come for the pigeon you can understand his surprise when Davie told him all he was asked to do was put the bird on the train in a box marked for Louis Massarella.

 

Jock was conscious of the quality of the Angus stock and being an admirer of his performances, as the seasons drifted by this pigeon ‘Townfoot Goodboy III’ was playing on his mind. The decision was made to go down and visit the Masarella family in person to see if any of this blood was still housed in their lofts. On arriving at the lofts it was Michael Massarella he met with, after listening to Jock’s request Michael went away to the stock loft and brought back a nine year old mealy cock ‘Young Townfoot’. It was explained to Jock that this was the last son of the Rennes winner they had in their possession and Michael was unsure if his father would part with him. He went away for a brief spell to consult with Mr Masarella senior and on his return Jock was told he could have the pigeon for £50. Looking back this was certainly money well spent as ‘Young Townfoot’ turned out to be an exceptional breeder for the Alston partnership and another of the team’s foundation stones.

 

Jock formed a good relationship with Davie Angus and actually took ‘Young Townfoot’ for him to have a look at it once it was up in the Kirkfieldbank loft. To go with the mealy cock Jock purchased a young chequer and a young red chequer hen to try with him. Upon reflection and such is the value Jock Alston placed on these Angus pigeons, his main regret is he didn’t get more birds from Davy when he had the chance.

 

The birds from the above sources provided Jock and Isabel with a strong framework, but like many of the top fanciers one or two birds are brought in regularly to try out. The one thing I notice all the birds brought into the Alston Loft, either at Kirkfiledbank or Ravenstruther, have in common is an immaculate long distance ancestry. Birds from Mitchell & Paterson from Kirkfieldbank, Billy Davidson & son of Coalburn, J Stirling & sons of Burnbank, John Bosworth of Elphinstone, Jim Hannah of Blantyre, Jock Allan of Symington, Alan Parker of Clitheroe,Kerr Stainthorpe of Lesmahagow and John Clark of Airdrie have all left their mark on the team.

 

More recently Jock has been impressed with introductions made from the UNC ace partnership R & A Evans, Dixon and Gibbon of High Southwick and the NFC winning Chris Gordon of Old Snydale. Additionally Jock regularly exchanges pigeons with Davie Elliot of Newbigging, a fancier he rates amongst the very best in the country.

 

As I touched on earlier in the report it was in 1996 the Alstons moved to Ravenstruther (pronounced Renstrie). Whereas I’ve only ever seen photos of the loft at Kirkfieldbank it really looked the part being of brick construction and beautifully kept. In saying this, the wooden lofts and the garden at the present address are a credit to Jock. There are five lofts in the garden with the main racing loft being 20 x 8 and housing most of the old bird race team, an additional 10 x 6 loft is used for old birds and as a matter of interest this is home to one of the outstanding performers of the 2013 season but I’ll get to him shortly. The young bird loft is 12 x 7 and split into two sections as Jock likes to race around thirty six youngsters on the darkness system. Jock has been using darkness with the young birds for a few years now on the conventional method allowing the pigeons around 8-9 hours daylight and taking them off the system around the middle to end of June depending on the length of time the youngest birds in the section have been on it. The same questions tend to pop up when talking about these fairly new systems of controlling the moult in youngsters and I asked Jock if it affected them as yearlings or later in life. Going on the fact the ONLY yearling on the day into Scotland, Jock’s 10th Open SNFC winner , from this year’s tricky Clermont race was on darkness last season as young bird we can take the answer to be no. Jock has had other birds that were on darkness as youngsters in the past that have scored from as many as three SNFC events in their yearling season. The bulk of the stock birds are housed in a 12 x 6 loft with a spacious aviary attached although Jock has another shed he can use for one or two stock birds as well. All the lofts are of Jock’s own construction and it’s difficult to pick fault with them.

 

10th Open SNFC Clermont 2013, only yearling on the day of liberation from 508 miles

The partners didn’t have to wait long after moving to Ravenstruther to continue where they left off as the year of the move they managed to score 2nd West Region 31st Open Sartilly, then the next year 3rd West Region,18th Open Nantes. I’ve purposely tried to steer clear of rhyming off results, for no other reason than I don’t find them a particularly easy read but the next few warrant a mention.

 

The lofts of J & I Alston

One the couple’s biggest thrills came in the summer of 2004, the year the SNFC Gold Cup race was flown from La Ferte Bernard in the Pays de la Loire region in north-western France. J & I Alston timed a cracker just shy of 15 hours on the wing on the day of liberation to top the West Region for their second time and win 17th Open for their efforts. Jock was actually on the phone to Frank Souness at the time of the chequer hen’s arrival and remembers having to put the phone down in a hurry to time the bird, now named ‘Kerr’s Pride’. The hen was bred by Jock’s good friend Kerr Stainthorpe and is a prime example of one good deed repaying another as ‘Kerrs Pride’ was a gift pigeon to Jock down through pigeons he gifted to Kerr. This West Region winning hen as well as containing the lines of a number of J & I Alston’s reference pigeons including; ‘Our Goodboy’, the 18th Open Nantes hen and the No.1 pair also contains the lineage of Billy Davidson and son’s good blue hen (1st, 2nd and 3rd West Region between Nantes and Niort), which was another top pigeons another top pigeons bred in the Alston loft. Like all of the birds housed in Renstrie Lofts, this Region winning hen most certainly contained the bloodlines required for the job in hand.

 

To have one pigeon in the top 100 of the result from a SNFC Gold Cup race is what many in this country feel pigeon racing is all about, but in 2009 the greedy Alstons weren’t happy with one or even two for from the Alencon Gold Cup race, that season they took the following open positions 14th, 72nd, 82nd, 92nd and 95th with this race being the highlight in one of the partnerships most successful seasons achieving what is the most difficult thing in Scottish pigeon racing, scoring from all races in the SNFC calendar. This is a feat the Alston’s have managed on a few occasions and it was to be the case again in the 2012 season. Not only did the Alston loft win the West Region and Section E Average trophies it also managed to rack up its third West Region win and become the first loft to win the George Rankin memorial trophy. This trophy was donated by George’s wife, Marcia and son, Gareth to commemorate the life of George who passed away in October 2011. George was a stalwart of long distance racing in Scotland and it’s a fitting tribute to have this trophy up for grabs in his favourite, the SNFC longest race. Aside from winning this beautiful trophy another ‘SNFC first’ took place in the process. In what was a very difficult Niort race J & I Alston were to be the only loft in the West of the country to record a bird in race time. The winning bird was called ‘Renstrie Rasper’ and such was the effort he put into returning home that day it’s reckoned he was around half his normal size on return. The sire of Rasper was himself a steady performer with three top prizes in National open results over 500 miles. Like the 1st West Region La Ferte Bernard, this Niort winner also contains the line of the loft’s ‘Our Goodboy’. The dam of Rasper was the result of an exchange with Airdrie fancier John Clark and in the hands of Jock and Isabel was 58th Open in the SNFC from Reims in 2003. Pairing SNFC Gold Cup prize winners together certainly paid dividends in this case.

 

2012 was certainly a year to remember but 2013 proved to be no less. This season the loft’s next generation of star performers have seen the Alston name join those of the greats to have won the West region on four occasions from the French race points. The Gold Cup race from Alencon saw Resntrie Lofts clock two birds within 20 minutes from 526miles to win 26th and 30th Open. The first of these is the outstanding candidate to win this season’s bird of the year award in Scotland as not only did he put up this great performance, less than three weeks later he was to win 1st West Region 2nd Open SNFC Clermont when only 12 birds made it into Scotland on the day of liberation. Some three weeks before the Gold Cup race he was also 81st Section from the Newbury inland national race- a truly fantastic bird, worthy of the title ‘Champion’. What makes it all the more remarkable is that this cock’s mate was lost before Alencon and he put up these great cross channel performances, on the face of it, racing to his box. The sire of this super bird was himself a super racer winning 44th Open SNFC Falaise and 29th Open Andrezel. He is direct from the lofts noted Alan Parker pair. The Dam is steeped in the old Alston lines containing the blood of ‘Red Star’ and the top stock cock at the present time, a double grandson of ‘Kerr’s Pride’ and ‘Red Star’ the result of pairing two nest mates together, when he was paired to the Jock Allan hen.

 

1st West Region, 2nd Open SNFC Clermont, 26th Open SNFC Alencon and 81st Sec E Newbury 2013

 

The red chequer hen that was to be 30th open Alencon was also to make it onto the Clermont result finishing 138th Open. There is no denying it takes a pigeon of real class to score from two cross channel events into Scotland in the one season and here we have another example of the old adage ‘blood will tell’. This red hen is a direct daughter of the top stock cock mentioned above when he was paired to a full sister of the partners 14th open Alencon 2009.

 

30th Open SNFC Alencon and 138th open SNFC Clermont 2013

 

Jock has had an especially successful time of it on the pigeon racing front with some exceptional performances over the 2012 and 2013 seasons, but unfortunately he has had them without the company of his wife and soul mate. It has been over two years now since Isabel Alston passed away, with the loss of a partner being something a person can never really ‘get over’ Jock misses Isabel in all aspects of daily life. They were a great partnership not only in pigeon racing but in every meaning of the word. Although the highs of the sport will never really feel the same without Isabel there to share them, I’m sure Jock will take some comfort in the knowledge that his wife’s memory will live on and that the way he has continued with the birds through this difficult time is what she would have wanted.

 

Jock would describe his methods as straight forward and having no hard and fast rules with regards to managing the pigeons. The birds are usually separated over the winter months and are seldom out, however they do have access to large aviaries in front of the loft where they spend a lot of their time. Handy when it comes to bathing the birds.

 

Red Star - 3rd Section Lille, 14th Section hastings, 15th Section Portland, 17th Section Newbury and 52nd Section 203rd open Reims, winners of 5 x 1st club 49-200 miles including 1st fed Ridsdale, 2nd fed Lockerbie, 3rd fed Portland. Sire and gsire and ggsire to many winners.

 

Breeding starts in early February with the stock pigeons usually the first to be paired. Once Jock feels these birds are taking to one another and won’t cause him too much hassle the first of the two racing lofts are paired, normally around 12 pairs. It’s the same procedure again after around 10 days to a fortnight when all is well in this loft the birds in the main racing loft are then coupled. This tactic of staggering the pairings and not pairing all birds at the same time is mainly for convenience and prevents the need for Jock to be in three or four places at once. All birds are allowed to rear a nest and some of the eggs from the main birds are floated under the others.

 

Renstrie Redboy - 14th Section 100th open La Ferte Bernard, 15th section 73rd open SNRPC Alencon, 15th Section SNRPC Wanstead Flats, 18th Section 190th Open SNFC Newbury, a fantastic breeding cock.

 

In recent years Jock has separated the sexes for racing during the first part of the season. This is not really a conventional widowhood or roundabout method but an effective way of flying Jock has found to suit him. With the matings being staggered not all birds are separated at once but by the time the second or third race comes round all birds will be parted from their mates. Like a lot of fanciers nowadays, due to increases in both the predation of our pigeons and the fuel costs, he has taken the emphasis away from private training tosses and tends to give the birds more racing and home exercise. Jock is a great supporter of the Clydesdale midweek club and has found it very useful the last couple of seasons in preparing his birds for the cross channel races.

 

The programme for the main cross channel candidates is never too rigidly set. From looking back at a number of the results, they have had great success with pigeons that have been to the Newbury Inland national beforehand as well as birds that have been sent to one of the Feds 250 mile events in their final preparatory race.

 

Jock doesn’t have many fads regarding pigeon’s nest conditions or much else for that matter, but one thing he does not tend to do is send the pigeons across the water on youngsters of any age. It’s not that he has never tried this; it’s just not worked as well for him as when the birds have gone on eggs. Usually they will go on 10-12 day eggs due to the time Jock chooses to re-pair after their 5-7 weeks of celibacy.

 

A problem that arises for many who choose to race their pigeons on a celibate type system is that of the hens pairing with some inevitably laying eggs. As a point of interest Jock has found this year he seems to have avoided this, a fact he puts down to the hens seeing their mates more often due to one or both of the pair having the midweek and the weekend race.

 

The Alston birds have food in front of them at all times and when paired this is in galley pots in the nest boxes. Whereas Jock has his preferred mixtures if he were to go to the stockist to find they didn’t have it he’d be happy to buy an alternative, feeling that there is very little to choose between the leading brands today in terms of quality. In the winter Jock will add up to 50% barley to the feed, whilst the birds are rearing young he includes tic beans in the mixture and in the build-up to the main races of the season he will add a good mixture that contains a few types of maize. Seeing as the birds have their mixture available at all times Jock can pay close attention to what the birds are eating and what they are not, two or three seasons back in the weeks leading up to the first channel race he saw the birds were polishing off the maize over anything else and it was from here on he started to add a mixture at this time with a high maize content.

 

 

The Chenoise Cock

 

The birds are given some conditioning mix, a little Hormoform or the occasional peanut but this is mainly to keep them calm and to get them into their nest box so they are easily caught. Jock doesn’t feel the use of peanuts has contributed too much to his successes as the quantity used over the course of the season is negligible.

 

There isn’t really too much to add on the medication front, Jock isn’t one for administering any routine treatments but he will act if he feels something’s not quite right. As far as supplements go cider vinegar, garlic oil, probiotics etc. the pigeons at Renstrie lofts have had most of them over the years, the observations of the owner however was that there was no real difference of any note.

 

One thing that became clear to me quite quickly after visiting the lofts in Ravenstruther is that their consistency at 500-600+miles and the many great wins achieved by J & I Alston aren’t through elaborate feeding systems, treatment cycles or extensive supplementation, but stem from good pigeons kept in a healthy environment and managed with a caring and common sense approach.

 

Seeing as I’m compiling this loft report towards the back end of the young bird race programme I’ve spoken to Jock a few times on young bird racing and how much work he gives his own youngsters. The main thing I’ve taken from the conversations was that he feels it’s necessary for the youngsters to go right out and whereas he will stop one or two of the particularly well bred birds after a few races he likes to send a fair few to the young bird national. It is interesting looking through the top performance pigeons in the loft at present and from the past and seeing just how many of them have gone right to the end as youngsters. This thorough education seems to set them up well for later life.

 

I’m always interested to know other fancier’s view on the Scottish National Flying Club itself and to see how/if they feel it can be improved. Such is Jock’s enthusiasm for cross channel racing he has never been totally in favour of the inland races in the National programmes since the first ones inception in 1997. Although he sends to them annually they are not really what he feels the club should be about. I’m sure he voices the feelings of a large cross section of the membership when he says the current situation with the clubs race marking facilities is not ideal and there is less emphasis on professionalism and security compared to days gone by. This is a point that I’m certain the current committee are well aware of and will no doubt address for the next season’s racing.

 

Another of the questions I asked was what advice would this experienced long distance performer give to people looking to achieve similar feats from the cross channel races. Using his own story as an example he felt it would be worthwhile for any aspiring long distance fanciers to acquaint themselves with men and woman who are doing it regularly from these big races, not necessarily with a view to acquiring pigeons but to get an idea of what they are doing and how they keep/ prepare their birds for these tasks.

 

Aside from the racing and keeping of pigeons Jock also tries his hand at a bit of photography, he’ll be the first admit he’s not quite as accomplished at it as the likes of Jim Hannah but he takes a good picture and it’s been interesting looking through the photos of the partnership’s past winners as well as seeing some of the ones he has taken recently.

 

To conclude I’d like to thank Jock for sharing his time and knowledge with me, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know a bit about this fantastic partnership and seeing up close the fantastic team of birds Jock and his late wife, Isabel have developed through the years. I hope a few have found it interesting reading about some of the performances, pigeons and the background of one of Scotland’s great long distance lofts. It would come as no surprise to me to see Jock win a fifth West Region trophy in the near future.

 

Thanks again Jock.

 

 

Lewis McCalley