'Tireless Wings-A Talk on Racing
Pigeons'
H. J. SEWELL
There are some 75,000 members of the National Homing Union and a quarter of a million pigeon-fanciers in the country, but talks on racing pigeons make even a wider appeal. A bird, released hundreds of miles from its home, and finding its way back through all weathers, often wounded by a hawk or some indiscriminate fellow with a gun, appeals to our imaginations.
Mr. Sewell, who is to give this talk, kept pigeons from boyhood. He became interested in homing pigeons twelve years ago, and his first loft cost him 7s. 6d. Today he is a member of the Council of the National Homing Union, and is known throughout the racing pigeon world.
Nine years ago 2,000 pigeons were released in Guernsey on a bitter day of fog and rain, and only eight were ' clocked in ' in England before night. Among them was Mr. Sewell's pigeon 'Babie', only twenty weeks old. It had covered the 265 miles to Derbyshire across sea and land, and won him his first big prize.