When they arrived, their owners had to take them to an agreed meeting point, often a pub or shop.
The birds were taken to a pre-determined location, usually no more than ten miles away, and then released to fly back to their coops. They were, at first, short-distance affairs and generally involved enthusiasts from a single village or community. By 1850 it was so well established in Bolton that it attracted the attention of public health officials by 1860 it had reached Derbyshire and in 1877 it made its first known appearance in Northumbria.īy then, races had already become a weekly activity in many parts of the country.
From there, the practice spread northwards. Weavers in Spitalfields were rearing pigeons for flying no later than 1830. The documentary record is patchy, but some of the first people to keep birds are found in London. Pigeon racing appears to have first put down roots in the south of England. With birds no longer needed to carry information, traders, newspapers and government agencies sold their stock on, making them more readily available to early hobbyists. Yet it did not really get going until the arrival of the electrical telegraph, a little over a decade later. It was most likely introduced to Britain by Belgian racers, who were releasing their birds from as early as 1819. It was not until slightly later that the idea of racing homing pigeons for sport took hold. It is no accident that, in 1815, word of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo was brought to London by pigeon. In the 16th century they conveyed messages across the Ottoman Empire and by the early 19th century they were carrying news across the English Channel. In 776 BC the victors at the first Olympic Games were announced to cities throughout Greece by pigeons and Julius Caesar is said to have used them on his campaigns. Homing pigeons are known to have been used to carry messages since the earliest times. But it also shows how closely those experiences could be reflected in miners’ relationships with their pigeons and how much can be learnt about the social history of mining from the sport of pigeon racing. It lays bare the health problems, financial pressures, family tensions and psychological strain felt by many miners. Then, as they swoop low over the valley, he curses quietly, puts a shotgun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.īerry’s story is a harrowing portrait of the human cost of coal mining in South Wales during the industry’s dying days. Opening the hatch, he shoos them out gently. He is closer to the birds than to anyone. It is the only other place he feels ‘himself’. Unable to talk to his wife, he slouches out to his pigeon loft in the garden. His whole sense of meaning – his value as a ‘man’ – comes from being a collier. He is entitled to compensation and, as he is reminded, the union should help out, too.
Pigeon racing full#
After ‘nigh on 30 years’ hewing coal in the Fawr pit, his lungs are full of dust and, since he can no longer work, the mine is forced to make him redundant. In Ron Berry’s 1982 story ‘Time Spent’, Lewis Rimmer, a 57-year-old Welsh miner, decides to die among his pigeons.