President: Nigel Rigiani Chairman: Mike Shepherd Patron: Mark Gilbert BRITISH BARCELONA CLUB’S 50 ANNIVERSARY (Part 19) Les Kidd of New Milton. 50 years a member of the British Barcelona Club! Les Kidd has been a member of the British Barcelona Club for the club’s full 50 years and he tells me he competed in the very first two Barcelona races in 1965 and 1966. How many fancier are around today can say that! Although he competes in several premier longâ¦
Source: British Barcelona Club
President: Nigel Rigiani Chairman: Mike Shepherd
Patron: Mark Gilbert
BRITISH BARCELONA CLUB’S 50
ANNIVERSARY (Part 19)
Les Kidd of New Milton.
50 years a member of the British Barcelona Club!
Les Kidd has been a member of the British Barcelona Club for the club’s full 50 years and he tells me he competed in
the very first two Barcelona races in 1965 and 1966. How many fancier are around today can say that! Although he
competes in several premier long distances every season, the Barcelona event is the one that is still dear to his heart!
He was a leading long distance racer in the London area for many years and moved to New Milton about 14 years
ago, and continued his racing success there in Hampshire. Betty and I have taken holidays, on and off, for 30 years in
Highcliff the neighbouring town to New Milton and every time Les and I cross paths, he says, ‘why don’t you pop
around and see the birds next time you are in the area’. The month of September saw us take a week’s holiday with
the family in Hampshire and I thought I might take the opportunity to have a day out on my own to visit a couple of
old pigeon fancier friends who live there, in the form of the two London exiles, Les Kidd and Rod Berry who reside
in the same road in New Milton. When I arrived at Les home the sun was shining and I was very impressed on how
good his loft looked in his wonderful garden. He tells me, his wife, Cynthia, must take the credit for that, as she is
very keen gardener and works very hard to keep it looking so nice. She is also a great help with his pigeon
management!
Les has a very smart 16ft racing loft, which is of the old design, being open with a full length bay and trapping is
through ‘bob’ holes off the top of the bay, with ETS timing. He tells me the main feature of his loft is plenty of fresh
air and has tried deep litter on the floors, but found it too dusty, so cleans out every day. The loft has a 10ft section,
with wooden natural nest boxes, for the old birds and a 6ft section for the youngsters, and an eye catching feature in
the loft was Les’ self-built Plywood corn hoppers, that are filled with farm Tic Beans all the year around. The Kidd
pigeons are all, racers and stock birds, fed on farm Tic Beans and get a tip-bit of condition seed for treat. The very
small stock bird team of four pairs are kept in a little 6ft x 6ft self-built loft at the top of the garden near Les and
Cynthia’s bungalow and this loft houses four sons of the champion breeder ‘Sadler’s Wills’ and their mates. The
Kidd’s 20 pairs of old birds are raced totally on the natural system and are paired up the first week in March, with
550 mile racing in mind. Les uses the shorter races to get the birds trained and ‘match fit’, and likes to send them to
the main long distance events sitting ten day old eggs. He doesn’t train his old birds these days because in 2008, when
training his old birds from 20 miles, they were attacked by birds of Prey and he suffered losses and several badly
injured birds. Les told me, it was like a blood bath in his loft when they returned! He decided not to train again after
that terrible day and now, after flying well around home, he jumps them into the first 200 mile race and it works. He
maintains after five seasons with not training his old birds his long distance performance are even better! Les like his
race team to have eight hours flying from France before going into the maim long distance events and this sometimes
means two flies from Messac. He breeds about 25 young birds, plus a couple of late breds each year and rarely races
his youngster, but maintains if he was a serious young bird racer he would use the ‘darkness’ system. He likes his
babies to grow and is looking ahead two years, that’s when they are tested from 500 miles. Although Les doesn’t
train his old birds, the youngsters are trained from 3 miles every day to teach them about the basket and says, they go
off and run along the south coast for well over an hour every morning.
Les Kidd is a 100% long distance enthusiast and has no interest in any other racing what so ever. He has had many
years of success racing at the very top level in the long distance side of our sport. He has a big job remembering, but
the highlights are: winning the gold medal and 1
open Combine Bordeaux (4,364 birds), clocked five birds on the
day of liberation in the NFC Pau Grand National (560 miles) to record 5
, 10
, 64
open (6,066 birds), lifting ‘The
Queen Coronation Cup’ and ‘The Orchardson Challenge Trophy’ for best two bird and three bird averages. Some of
his best racers were: ‘The Lerwick Cock’ 8
section NRCC Lerwick (flew 604 miles on the day), then turned south
road to win 1
club, 11
Federation Bergerac (450 miles). He was another premier breeder for the Les Kidd loft. ‘The
Pau Cock’ 4
open L&SECC Pau (flew 556 miles on the day), ‘My Favourite’ 10
open CSCFC Pau (north east
wind): ‘Favourite’s Sister’ 21
open BBC San Sebastian, ‘Pyrenees King’ 8
open BBC Barcelona (702 miles), north
east a very hard race, ‘Misty Lady’ 5
open CSCFC Tarbes (526 miles), ‘Princess’ 9
open CSCFC Tarbes (526
miles), ‘Barcy’ 8
open BICC Barcelona. ‘Lady in Red’, a Fear Brothers / Titmuss cross hen bred by G. Frewin and
winner of 15
, 16
open BBC Palamos (655 miles), ‘Le Mome Piaf’ (means ‘Little Sparrow’) 5
open BBC
Barcelona (672 miles), 45
open Tarbes, 59
open Tarbes. Les owns two famous pied hens that have won the ‘The
Blue Riband Certificate’ merit award for scoring three times in the first 100 open in the Central Southern Classic
Flying Club Tarbes race.
The main family raced is A. E. Sheppard of North London and go back to 1905, and these were originally obtained
from the great Surrey long distance fancier, Ian Benstead of Capel. Les brings in a cross from time to time and has
had great success with all English bloodlines, including: Mike Young (Spangles), Peter Titmuss, Norman Southwell
and Fear Brothers. Johnny Will of Frimley is a great friend of Les’ and he is famed for his great success racing long
distance with the Ian Benstead pigeons, and years ago he bred Les a youngster which turned out to be the father of the
New Milton loft. The champion breeding cock was the blue chequer, ‘Sadler’s Wills’ and Les tells me, nearly all his
best birds through the years go back to this wonderful pigeon. This once in a life time stock cock was named after the
champion stud race horse and Les’ good friend Johnny Wills! His long distance birds have given him a lot of fun over
the years and he still gets a great ‘buzz’ from seeing his birds arrive home from races from France and Spain.
Les kept pigeons as pets as a nine year old lad where he lived in Brentford, Middlesex and tells me there was a lot of
pigeon fancier on the council estate where he lived. He played a lot of football when he was young and was called up
for a trial for Brentford Football Club the same as he was called up to do Army National Service at the age of
eighteen years old. He got married to his wife, Cynthia, and built his first loft which was small 6ft x 4ft structure and
Ernie Cloves of Ealing started him up with his first proper racing pigeons in 1962. In the early days he liked sprint
racing and won the Federation from Bournemouth, Exeter and Penzance and in 1965 he won the Combine, which
made up from five Federations in those days, from Bordeaux (4,364 birds). After over 50 years in the sport, Les
remembers that his first club was the Ealing HS and two of the legends of the day, Freddie Meale and Tubby Tate,
were in the membership. He laughed when he told me, his first birds were a right mixed bunch of ‘mongrels’ and the
main novice mistake he made in the beginning was, sending his best birds to every race.
Being a good worker for the sport for over 50 years, Les tells me he has been a clock setter for most of his pigeon life
and was taught by the old Feltham legends, Bob Carter and Jackie Newell. He told me if he could change anything in
the sport he would bring back three races only per season for the National Flying Club, British Barcelona Club and
Central Southern Classic Flying Club. Les maintains the Classic and National clubs are turning their programmes into
ordinary Federation type programmes and are not really special any more. They should go back to one middle
distance race, Tarbes or Palamos and a young bird race from France. The thing he really hates is sending his birds to
550 miles and having them liberated at mid-day, and says what’s the point and what does it prove! He is a great
believer in inbreeding and line breeding, and has only brought in about five or six birds in to his loft in the last 35
years to cross into his A. E. Sheppard base family. He breeds a couple of late breds each season off his best racers to
even up his pairings for the following year.
It was great meeting up with Les and Cynthia again and I must say how well they both looked living that wonderful
Hampshire sea air! Thanks to them both for a most enjoyable loft visit!
