Rooster J Cogburn Column

[Rooster J. Cogburn]

JOHN ELLIS

OF WELLBANK

Part 2

by Lewis McCalley

John in his loft coat!

When asked about his biggest thrill in pigeon racing, John Ellis has a lot to consider. The one he came back to was of course the night he timed his great strawberry mealy hen ‘Wellbank Pride’ from Rennes (584 miles) back in 1965. After a one day holdover the birds were up at 0615 in a NW wind and a hard race ensued. John and his father had been informed of pigeons down in the borders around Lockerbie and Annan with the earliest being Billy Gardener with ‘Sky Queen’ at 19:38. As time went on they found themselves losing faith, the night was falling and the crows were heading to roost when out of the darkness appeared this great hen to be timed at 22:32 and take 1st East Section, 8th Open. The phone never stopped ringing until after 3am that night; many fanciers sent their congratulations and some of the Fife lads actually believe they saw the hen going over. Her sire was the product of the original Matt Telfer eggs containing the Strachan/Shearer bloodines whilst the dam was a gift bird from Jock Brown of Ed Harrow lineage. In her yearling season prior to her Rennes performance the hen was 2nd North of Scotland Championship club from Worcester, whilst the previous year as a youngster she was 31st Section in the Usher National race from Cheltenham (321 miles). At this point it is interesting to note the roadwork John Ellis gives his young pigeons. From the very beginning he has believed firmly in giving the youngsters a good grounding, sending them to as many races and as far as possible. This is something he has practised from the start and in fact most of his youngsters in the 2013 season competed in both the SNRPC Peterbourgh and SNFC Leicester races.

 

John with Wellbank Pride the day after she was 8th Open SNFC Rennes in 1965

Later in the 1960s to supplement his now winning family of birds a few more introductions were made in the form of birds from Jock Reid of Stenhousemuir, Duncan Ogilvie of Stirling, A. R Hill of St Just, Dave Liddle of Forfar and Hutton of Leslie.

 

John had gifted Jock Reid a bird from his good pair- ‘4985’ and the ‘bent Keeled Hen’. One day when taking the birds on a training toss with his mother and father the decision was made to go to Stenhousemuir to liberate the birds and to visit Jock and Hughie Reid. Jock Reid who was very impressed with the youngster he had received from Wellbank, told John he could take whatever he wanted. John explained that what he wanted was what Jock Reid had given Nash in the form of their 1966 SNFC Gold Cup winner ‘Daphne’s Delight’. After a bit of gentle coaxing Jock and Hughie agreed and John headed back up the road with a full brother to ‘Daphne’s Delight’ straight out of the nest. The sire of these pigeons was a bird Jock Reid had received as a gift from S.W.E Bishop and contained many of the top European lines as chosen for Jos Vandenbroucke by the master selector Piet De Weerd. The dam of ‘Daphne’s Delight’ and John’s blue cock was Lot 3 at the dispersal sale of J.W. Langstone and was closely related to ‘Cinderella’ the star of his Delbar based family. Later John was gifted another pigeon from the Reids - a granddaughter of their famous ‘Hastings Hen’.

 

Wellbank Endurance

The odd thing about both of the Reid pigeons was when paired to examples of John’s own family they didn’t really produce anything worth note. The true value of these birds was revealed in their offspring when they were paired to one another. The main exception being the good hen ‘Patricia’ who amongst her performances was 9th Open SNFC Beauvais, winning the Vaux Usher trophy for first bird north of the Tay a well as winning 85th Section from Avranches and flying Pau (915miles) with the NFC, finishing just 2ypm off the result. This hen was bred from the Reid Cock when paired to a Hutton hen, which also carried the bloodlines of J.W Langstone. ‘Patricia’ was named after John’s wife and the year of her 9th open Beauvais was the year the pair married. Patricia has shied away from a big mention in this report, but I’d like to express my thanks to her. I’ve enjoyed her company on my visits to Wellbank and she is a wonderful cook. She was a great help to John in the days when he was all over the country with the band and would willingly shut the loft or take the birds for a training toss. Being married to a man like John for all these years hasn’t been without it trials mind you, and she has informed me if he doesn’t die of natural causes it will be murder.

 

Patricia

Duncan Ogilvie who was well associated with Jock Reid was a great fancier who as well as winning 4th Open SNFC Nantes took 1st, 2nd and 3rd with ‘Mary’, ‘Irene’ and ‘Tib’ from the Scottish Central Combine Dol race in 1965. It was an Ogilvie pigeon that was the dam of John’s ‘Wellbank Faithful’ who had the same sire as ‘Wellbank Pride’. The Gold Award was introduced to the SNFC in 1975 as a way of recognising pigeons that have scored 5 times from France, winning a section prize on each occasion. It didn’t take John long to win one as it was in 1977 when Faithful picked up this prize.

 

There have been a number of exceptional fanciers that have visited Wellbank over the years and arguably none more so than Arthur Hill. It was through Duncan and Sandy Ogilvie John Ellis first met Arthur, the pair brought him up to see John and his birds. Wanting to repay the gesture John gave Arthur a call when down visiting Harold Davey and Stan Cecil in Kent, asking if he could come to St. Just to see him. Arthur welcomed the visit but exclaimed he wouldn’t be much quicker coming from Kent than he would from Dundee. After getting the train to London, John set off for Cornwall and on his arrival at St. Just handled birds in the class of ‘Cornish Supreme’, ‘Double Award’, ‘Silver Lady’ and many descendants from the world famous Galabank colony of Johnny Kirkpatrick. One of the birds John Ellis received from A.R Hill was actually sire to one of the cocks he recorded from Rennes as a youngster with the BBC, a distance of 583 miles when only months old.

 

Mealy cock - flew Rennes (580 miles) with the BBC in 1972

Dave Liddle was a top class long distance fancier and John recalls his birds excelling when the chips were down and the wind was blowing from the northeast. At one time he held the record within the SNFC for the greatest distance flown on the day of liberation - 650 miles with his 2nd Open Nantes hen. This record was subsequently taken by the legendary Ritchie and Whyte partnership, whose ‘Jubilee Express’ flew 723miles on the day of liberation. You’d have to doubt this record will ever be broken into Scotland. John Ellis had approached Dave Liddle at the end of the season hoping to buy a pair of birds. Nothing more was heard on the matter and naturally John thought he wasn’t going to get the pigeons, until out of the blue he received a phone call the following spring and was invited to Forfar to take his pick. When enquiring about the cost of the birds John was told it would cost him 30 shillings, thinking Dave meant ‘each’ he went into his pocket and brought out £3 to be told it was 30 shillings for the pair. This turned out to be some bargain as these made a big impact on the Wellbank loft. In years to come the pair would exchange birds and Dave always liked a couple of early bred youngsters from John. One bird John received from Dave would win 43rd Open Nantes and go on to fly the channel every year until she was 10, winning 96th Open Avranches at 9 years old. The Liddles not unlike the Ogilvies are well-known in Scottish pigeon racing and although the men mentioned are no longer with us their names live on through their grandchildren who feature regularly on the national results these days.

 

Aside from the already mentioned ‘Patricia’, the Hutton of Leslie Dr Anderson based pigeons made a further impact. Particularly a cock John had on loan, which he paired to a granddaughter of ‘4985’ and ‘The Bent Keeled Hen’. This mating produced Wellbank Star who was 65th OpenEast of Scotland Continental Club Avranches and three times in the first 75 Open SNFC in cross channel competition including 5th open Nantes.

 

Wellbank Star

Such is John’s record it would not be feasible to list all the results and performances. For instance one could fill a page or two with the performances of only eight of his pigeons that have won forty prizes from across the channel between them. However there are many of John’s birds from the 1960s and 70s that are worth a mention.

 

‘Wellbank Favourite’ is one such bird, being closely related to old No.1 cock ‘4985’ she turned out to be a super racer, crossing the channel on six occasions winning 17th Open Beauvais(first bird north of the Tay) and 22nd Open Nantes as an 8 year old. Another would be the ‘£1000 hen’ who was down through the grandson of ‘Tayside Princess’ and the Dave Liddle lines. This top hen was 11th Fed Avranches, 12th and 174thOpen SNFC Rennes. Another of the birds from ‘4985’ x ‘The Bent Keeled Hen’ was 15th Open SNFC Nantes, the year after her brother was 11th Open. The brother of course being the ‘Paris Cock’ who when paired to ‘Wellbank Star’ turned out to be grandsire of a cock that crossed the channel six times including 15th Open and 20th Open Avranches.

 

This means of listing birds is not really something I should have started as many birds with top 50 SNFC positions will have to be left out, but if it shows anything then I suppose it’s John’s ability to win equally well with both cocks and hens.

 

Aside from the Scottish National Flying Club, John Ellis made an impact on the results of the British Barcelona Club. In 1968 from Palamos he was able to record a bird from the 1044 mile journey. This was a red cock bred by John’s good friend Stuart Young. John has asked me to mention Stuart as the pair have been great friends for many, many years. John actually showed me some cracking photos taken outside Stuart’s loft of them posing with some of Stuart’s own SNFC flying club awards and trophies. This Palamos achievement was written about at the time as one of John’s greatest moments in the sport, this was before the red pied cock ‘Wellbank Endurance’ came along.

 

John's first Palamos pigeon

‘Welbank Endurance’ is one of Scotland’s iconic 1000 milers being 2nd Section, 88th Open BBC Palamos in 1972 and 1st Section, 27th Open BBC from the same race point the following year. For his 27th Open performance John had the honour of attending the BBC presentation in Bournemouth to collect a BBC Gold Medal, the Harkers Rose Bowl, The BBC Trophy and the Gordon Hare Cup for the furthest flying pigeon in race time. It should be noted that the 26 pigeons that beat Endurance in this Palamos event were all flying approximately 400 miles less. This honour has stuck with John as not only was he presented with these trophies but he got to spend time in the company of many of England’s all-time greats from the Spanish race points. One all-time great whose attention ‘Wellbank Endurance’ grabbed was Jim Biss. He purchased the cock for £1000-a lot of money in 1974!! A few years later the cock returned to Wellbank through F. W. S Hall to see out the rest of his days in the home he was obviously so attached to.

 

Mealy Pied hen - 21st Open SNFC Nantes, 643 miles on the day of liberation

When visiting a fancier in the calibre of John Ellis, it’s natural to assume there must be a ‘secret’ of some sort. Whereas John doesn’t profess to be doing anything out of the ordinary there is one thing in particular I can see that could be hailed as one of the key reasons for over fifty years of unbroken success. That in one word is - breeding. Although birds are brought into the loft fairly regularly very many of John’s present day winning pigeons are traceable back to these great birds he was flying in the early days. John could be described as fanatical with regards to record keeping and spends many hours in front of the fire on winter evenings studying his books, the lineage of each pigeons and considering possible matings for the forthcoming breeding year. He has what he refers to as his ‘good line’ and he likes to keep this as tight as possible, it’s not unusual for John to pair birds of very similar bloodlines. In fact one of the best pigeons in the loft at the minute ‘Wellbank Blueboy’ has spent 2013 paired to his full sister. For lines introduced into the loft at Wellbank to be bred into the ‘good line’ they must first show to John they are up to the tasks he asks of his own pigeons. Recently a couple of pairs of birds of Jan Aarden stock have been introduced from Louella, John got these as they were birds we all read about so often these days and he is interested to see how they fare against his own pigeons. Whereas these birds have shown a lot of early promise winning club and fed 1sts and scoring from 2013’s Scottish young bird national races, they will not be allowed near the ‘good line’ until they have shown their worth from across the channel.

 

Red Chequer cock - flew Rennes (580 miles) with the BBC in 1973

With regards to keeping a line going for John it’s not just about choosing the correct pairings but it often involves making some difficult decisions. For instance one of John’s recent prolific breeding pairs ‘Jack the Lad’ and the ‘Hooper Hen’ had a habit of breeding cross channel winners in every nest. It would be hard for any fancier not to race a pigeon they believe was almost a dead cert (barring accident) to be a timer from France, but John has children from this pair he has never even put in a basket.

 

The attention paid to the breeding side of things could be one of the reasons why John has achieved all he has in pigeon racing, but there a couple of other factors John cites. The first of these is the use of peanuts. During the race season the birds (old and young) receive a lot of these with the quantity given to each bird being increased with distance of the races. He has told me he doesn’t feel he could race pigeons the way he does without them. Another interest point to rise from one of my conversations with John is the fact he allows his pigeons to rear young all the way through the race season-usually a pair in their first nest and singles thereafter. This he feels is important in terms of motivation and helps ‘tie’ the bird to the loft more or ‘bond’ to their home environment. The other advantage with the birds being left to go through their natural cycle is their owner has more time to observe them and take note of the stages where they display a greater keenness.

 

The loft today

I’ve mentioned John’s attitude towards his ‘good line’ so now some more of the birds that have found their way into it in the last 30 years or so. He regards his ‘Hooper Hen’ and the ‘Fox Cock’ as the best birds he has introduced since the ‘Grandson of the Tee’ and the Bostyn X Vereecke hen from the late Bernard Miles back in the early 1980s. John’s contact with Bernard came about through his helping retrieve a stray bird that ended up in Belgium. When the bird was reported John spoke to Captain Tom Buchannan, enquiring about the best way to get the bird back. Tom pointed him the direction of Bernard and a friendship was struck up. Bernard who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the ‘continentals’ purchased birds from many of the best European fanciers. After a time Bernard sent John a pair of birds with one being a grandson of Emiel Denys’ ‘Tee’ who over a five year period was the best Barcelona pigeon in all of Belgium, winning the Golden Wing award in 1982. When crossed into John’s own birds this cock made an immediate impact breeding three Fed winners and a bird for Stuart Young which would breed his 6th Open SNFC Rennes. The Pol Bostyn x Vereecke hen also made a big impact leaving many winners including the chequer cock that was 7th and 106th Open SNFC Sartilly in the 1992 and 1993 seasons.

 

The Tee connection - 7th Open SNFC Sartilly