Tribute to Keith Kirkman of Boston
I was saddened to read Carl Upsall’s words in the fancy press last week, informing the fancy of the passing of Keith Kirkman of Boston. When Keith won the NRCC from Saxa Vord in 1998 he was racing in partnership with Mickey Mooney and I visited their lofts a few months after that wonderful win. Keith was a smashing person and really enjoyed his brilliant success that season, and was a very proud man when he showed me that wonderful champion blue hen. It wasn’t only our names that we had in common, but he was a keen angler and invited me down to his local lake in Boston for a Carp fishing session. His first interest was his pigeon racing and he was a great worker in the sport. What nice man he was!The first loft on our tour of Lincolnshire was the home of 'Unique Lady' the champion blue hen that was the only bird on the day to win 1st open NRCC Saxa Vord in 1998. The proud owners of this pigeon were Keith Kirkman and Mickey Mooney who had been in partnership for four seasons with outstanding success. The partners named their great Van Winkel x Van Den Bosche hen 'Unique Lady' because she was the first to be the only bird on the day from this race point. This hen certainly displayed class being medium apple-bodied in the hand with wonderful eyes and feathering. She was sent to Saxa Vord, 540 miles, sitting 14 days and was clocked at 9.11pm after 14 hours 11 minutes on the wing to win 1st open NRCC plus an RPRA Award.
She was also 76th open Saxa Vord in 1997 sent sitting 15 days. A fantastic hen! She was then in the stock loft and was never see the race basket again.The partners raced the widowhood system up to Lerwick and then they re-paired to race the long distance events with hens and cocks on Natural to an open loft. They paired up on 20th January and after their first round of youngsters, the racers were parted for a few weeks and re-paired to be put on the Widowhood system sitting ten days on the second round of eggs. The Widowhood cocks were trained hard up to the second Federation race, after which they were only flown out around the loft twice a day. On re-pairing for the long distance the birds were trained every day up to the Lerwick race and were fed on beans, peas and maize. The partners raced a basic Widowhood system up to Lerwick with the hens being shown on the marking night and were not broken down, being fed a good quality Widowhood mixture. On my loft visit the partners showed me one of their top racing cocks, a Krauth blue chequer bred by Trevor Frost of Boston. He won 14th open NRCC Perth winning ‘The Racing Pigeon Trophy’ in 1998. The main 24ft racing loft was in Mick's back garden and had a young bird section and two for the Widowhood racers. All trapping was through open doors. Only three pairs of stock birds were kept in Keith's old racing loft in his garden and this wonderful old loft had seen many good winners through the years. At the time of my visit, Keith had been an outstanding pigeon fancier for 30 years and has won from every North Road race point including Thurso and Lerwick, twice. Keith told me on the day that it was a wonderful season for Boston fanciers in 1998 with Brian & Angela Garnham winning 1st open NRCC Lerwick, Alex Leggatt winning 3rd open NRCC Lerwick and themselves winning 1st open NRCC Saxa Vord. The late, great Keith Kirkman!
KEITH MOTT (MARCH 2017)
