Ray Clive

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THE FEDERATION ROLLER ENTHUSIAST

The response to my request for a name for the Birmingham Roller profiles has fallen on deaf ears, I only had one name put forward and that was for Roller Ramblings. I am aware that I had read such a column not so long ago so I have dismissed this idea. Although to be honest I can understand why the idea was put forward because you ask a Roller man a small question of you get a book thrown back at you. Of course I am jesting, I hope you all agree to the title, some of the nicest people I know keep Rollers but you shouldn’t hold that against them.

To get the ball rolling (not meant as a pun) I have started with a very dear friend of mine and to boot our Roller Representative within the Federation namely Mr. Ray Clive. Ray is one of your salt of the earth pigeon keepers he has been around pigeons all his life and I am sure will be to the day he draws his last breath. Ray is no longer a spring chicken but he possesses more energy than I will ever have but he puts his foot where it shouldn’t be. For those of you that didn’t know Ray for the last three months has been out of action because he fractured a small bone in his foot together with stretching his ligaments (very very painful) and this is the reason we have not seen him at the shows this year but I do know there is nothing that will stop Ray from being at The Federation show.

Ray and Lynda have been married for nearly 30 years and next February not only will they celebrate their 30th Wedding Anniversary but Ray will reach the ripe age of 70. They have two children David and Jayne. David is a mechanic and Jayne is a teacher and they both live in the Torquay area, which leaves Ray and Lynda at home on their own. Ray and Lynda have lived at Tiverton for 20 years coming from Lichfield where they had a smallholding and kept all sorts of things. Lynda kept horses in a big way; they used to board about 20/30 dogs a week alongside their own dogs, which Lynda kept and bred, which were Parson Jack Russell’s.

Ray’s other big love is fishing so in the winter months Lynda is a pigeon widow and the summer months a fishing widow. Lynda is very supportive to Ray in his hobbies and as everyone in this part of the world knows, Ray runs the Mid Devon show but even he admits that without the support of Lynda, and on show day Jayne their daughter he would not be able to keep the show going, and I know I speak for everyone when I say it is really good news that Ray is going to put on the show again this year.

I am not going to dwell to long on Ray the person because I know he has got a lot to say within his questions so let’s not delay.

A. I have had pigeons all my life. A family tradition handed down from my Father and Grandfather who were both racing men in the Midlands and in those days everybody seemed to keep pigeons.

A. As I mentioned I was influenced by my Father and Grandfather who both kept racing pigeons. After they both died, one evening when flying the racers which I kept at home with my Mum a couple of black squeaker Tipplers dropped in. Being naive I thought they were Tumblers because everybody seemed to keep Tumblers, anyway I kept these birds and started to fly them and they seemed to fly forever which intrigued friends of mine at the time. Anyway I then looked at the rings and they were NTU rings so this was the starting of me getting into Tipplers. I contacted the Birmingham Secretary (Tom Higgs) who introduced me to the Tippler world and we became very good friends. I found out the black Tipplers were bred by Peter Ellis bred from Cyril Meredith birds. In those days you could say that Cyril was Mr. NTU. Those early days the competition was vicious and you had to fly well into the dark to stand any chance of winning. When Cyril died I ended up with all his birds about 70 of them and of course I had great success with them. Cyril a real gentleman was a religious man and would not fly his birds on a Sunday and whatever happened on a Saturday night at midnight he would drop his birds no matter what because Sunday was his church day. I was living at Great Barr in Birmingham at the time and my Mum passed away at about the time I met Lynda, my shed got broken into and the birds taken or mutilated. Of course I was devastated; I even appeared on the ‘Police 5’ programme with Shawn Taylor but with no success in finding the culprits. This finished me with Tipplers until Lynda and I moved to Lichfield when I thought I would have another go at keeping my favoured bred after all I knew so many people in Tipplers especially around the Midlands and Bristol area (I can remember the Bristol Tippler Club having 60 members and on fly day you would get about 45/50 flying that’s a lot of b**** blokes and to think how its all fallen apart because of the Peregrine Falcon). Anyway when I got my new kit together I had a visit from Percy Fields from Worcester who said ‘You will never fly birds from here because it’s to flat’ and he was right 11/12 hours and that was your lot the birds would be down in the fields because of the wind on their backs. This is when I went into show racers after meeting Bill Carney. His father had got hold of some of the Green shield pigeons, which I ended up with and got me into show racers in a big way. Along with Harry Showell I formed the Midland Show Racer Society and it was a great success and at the monthly shows we would get anything up to 400 birds, which was good for a society show. Had a lot of fun doing this all before the children came along. I then ended up doing too much work wise and play wise with a small heart attack and the specialist advised me if I carried on with the small holding I wouldn’t be around very much longer to enjoy it. So we sold up and moved to Devon and I think it would be fair to say it’s been the best 20 years of my life down here. The only sad part about it is that I love to fly pigeons and of course down here it is full of Peregrine’s and Sparrow Hawks that you just can’t do it and believe you me I have tried. On arriving in Devon I decided to try with the Tipplers because I knew a lot of Tippler men including some of the greatest names living through the period that I did. NTU men like Cyril Meredith, Tommy Higgs, Jack Bowden (world record holder), Ernie Loach, Gordon Hughes (world Record holder), Percy Fields, The Carnew brothers, Fred Tranter, Horace Slade, Alan Chappy, Colin Bateman (what a bloke Colin was real salt of the earth material), Arthur Newton, Wilf Lovett (both WRH) Sam Norcott from up the North and Josh Davies from Wales. All of the Top Quality Tippler flyers. I then got into the Rollers having met a lot of them through the Tipplers. Bob Brown in my opinion he was Mr. Roller, and people like Ollie Harris, Bill Barrett and Bill Penson whom I met through Cyril Meredith and the list goes on and on while I had the Tipplers I also had a few prints because I enjoyed the showing as well and I was always great pals with Freddy Phillips, Len Rubery and Connebear and Pike all really great print men and of course you go on with Les Dawson and Freddy Squires. These are the sort of Tippler and Roller men I have mixed with all my life beside the top quality Racing Men I grew up with in Birmingham as a lad and I have loved it and loved every minute of my life with pigeons. I wouldn’t want to change anything at all. To summarise your question what breeds did you start with? (Surprised you remembered Ray - DW) I started with racing pigeons then I went onto the Tipplers followed by Show Racers and finally the Rollers. I did fly with the South West Roller Club until the Peregrine’s annihilated my kits so now I concentrate on the Show Rollers but it is not the same as flying the birds, but you do meet a lot of nice people. (AND YOU ALL THOUGHT I WAS JOKING – DW)

Dave can I just say before we carry on as you know I enjoy my birds but I also love a good days fishing and each year I get back up to the Midlands fishing on the river Severn which is where I lived for twelve years. The weather never seems to be kind when I go back and I always seem to end up on Frank Humphries and Melvyn Sorrells doorstep and end up talking about pigeons. I always go on and see Tony Stone and Stewart Harford and I always get that special welcome from John Tainty, so if its wet I enjoy flying the birds with these guys but if it’s nice I enjoy a good days fishing. Sorry to interrupt Dave.

A. Rollers - my entire stud has come from Jeff Davies in Cumbria and I must thank Jeff I always get a square deal from Jeff. It is nice to see more men down South coming into the Rollers and we have now got the South West Roller Club well under way and with 9 members we hope to organise a couple of shows soon This year I have breed some nice youngsters. I breed over 60 youngsters, which I have now reduced down to 8 young hens and 9 young cocks. This is alongside my 10 adult cocks and 10 adult hens. I have what I consider to be a couple of nice young yellows but only time will tell. The colours I keep consist of a lot of reds, blue Chequers, blue Chequer balds, a few bronze and a few yellows and of course a few tortoise shells we all have to keep a few tortoise shells.

A. I prefer a medium sized bird but you have to keep a couple of different types to satisfy the judges. I don’t want to see them get too big because I believe and it’s only a personal point of view that the Tippler has got too big and they are being spoilt. Many years ago, in the days of Freddy Phillips, Len Rubery and Dan Chatterly, I can remember the NTU shows where there was a medium sized bird that just fitted in your hand, hard as a bottle with a round body and they were well feathered and beautifully balanced but today you don’t find them like that. I suppose you could say I am one of the old school and like the old pigeons and I wouldn’t like to see the Rollers go down this path.

A.I have two lofts. My main loft is 30 foot by 6 foot divided into four compartments with and aviary running the full length 8 foot wide and 8 foot high. My other loft is 16 foot by 12 foot. I have included a picture of my lofts.

A. Well, what can you say, it’s all been said before. The only real advice I can give would be find yourself a fancier in your area and go and see him. They will soon establish whether you are interested or not and I am sure will give you every assistance if you are really keen. Make sure you go to the best and genuine fancier in your area that way you can be sure that you will not get ripped off. Before deciding which type of pigeon you are going to keep go to a show there are a lot of different types of fancy pigeons out there and it is important that you are sure that you have made the right choice. The amount of fanciers that I know that have had, about a dozen breeds in the first 12 months. I have only ever had flying breeds so it would be unfair for me to comment about the fancy pigeons. I thrive on competition and it keeps me on edge making sure the birds are well feed and watered, cleaning them twice a day and keeping them in very dry conditions. I give the birds a bath once a week and they always get any minerals they want. The biggest no no is ‘do not overcrowd’. A lot of good fanciers overcrowd their lofts and this is the biggest way of getting diseases in the loft than anything. I also believe that you should pick one breed and stick with it.

A. It’s no good kidding ourselves but the fancy is falling to pieces as I mentioned before I go back to the days when there were 60 members in one club with at least 50 competing in a fly and I can show anyone because I still have all my records from all those years ago. How can a young lad coming into the fancy be encouraged when he wins a card with a number on it instead of his name? This is a personal gripe as you know and I will not do it at my shows. I will not put numbers on cards it must have the exhibitors name. I would really love to get to more shows but as you get older the travelling does become a big factor. I would very much like to go to the Northern Roller Club but that would mean 8/9 hours travelling so I have resigned myself to the local shows like Plymouth, Bideford, Bristol and the South Coast show, obviously I will go to wherever the Federation goes because I believe The Federation show is a show of the future and that all the flying breed men should support the Federation show (trying to be the best of the best) it really is going places now with the men running it and the interest that it has generated it’s going to be a good show.

A. I would really like to thank my better half, since I have been laid up with my foot she has been marvellous not only going to work and looking after the dogs but looking after the birds as good as I could have done otherwise I would have had to think seriously about packing them up. I believe that behind every successful showman (or should I say show person) there is a good partner. Without mentioning any more names I would just like to thank everyone for their friendship throughout the years and I really think if I had my time all over again I wouldn’t change anything.

At this point Ray started to talk about all his successes with his Tipplers and although I found it fascinating I have decided that from the above you will all understand what Ray is all about he is someone that I have no hesitation is calling ‘my friend’ and I know if the chips were down Ray would be there offering a hand. Thanks for the time Ray.

I have been compiling this profile before the Federation show knowing that it will not be published until after the show. So I would like to say thanks to all that supported us and congratulations to all the winners. I am sure this won’t be the last time I mention the show. Regards to you all. Yours in sport DAVE WALTERS