IN THE BEGINNING
A happy 5 year old Jim emerton with Charlie Fantail and a young pied
In the 50s i.e. 1954 i caught a pencil blue young bird, rubbered strag. It fired my naive wonder and curiosity, so that after reporting it we realised the little cock belonged to an Irish fancier called Eugene. My old Dad explained pigeon racing to me and the dye was cast. I love all birds, and little Charlie Fantail was my favourite pet bird, at aged 5 years. Many moons would pass on the journey to the sage, when the pages would open and a light would shine on my life in pigeons. Now in the twilight of my career, I reflect, with silent and sweet nostalgia, on the wonderful and beautiful birds that have raced with distinction to the home of their birth. I cling on to one dream in pigeon racing and that is the winning of the BICC BELIEF TROPHY into Ireland from Barcelona International - it will be done.
Jim Emerton
REMEMBERING PIGEON PERCY
In the 60s and at Alvaston Derby I would go on an electric glad on a Trolley Bus to Derby. I bought peanuts from the market to sit on a park bench and feed the strags and ferals in the Riverside Gardens. Fascinated by the racers, I caught the old mealy cock with peanuts and the violet-eyed med. Ch. cock. As vagrants snored on the summer lawns, alive with lice and fleas, I met one of the redoubtable, pigeon eccentrics of the town. Celebrated in the local paper, he was known as a grand old personality of pigeons. I was fascinated by the man and most intrigued, since he would spin his head like a performing Birmingham Roller pigeon. We all knew him in Alvaston and Derby the endurance tippler men, the roller men and the racing men, who shared the love of their feathered friends. Hudson flew the legendary King of Rome into Derby, and I gazed upon the blue cock’s stuffed body on many occasions, laying the foundations of my lifelong dreams. Old Percy died an old man, yet left his imprint behind.
Jim Emerton
