Here’s a bit of a quick one while I work on something for later in the week. This is footage of pigeon fanciers preparing their birds for racing, I think between 1957 and 1962. The film, as you can see, seems to centre on Ogley Hay Club (note it has no soundtrack, sadly).
The location is interesting in itself, as I thought The Black Cock was the centre of local pigeon racing in the area.
Anybody recognise the gentlemen ringing their prize fliers? Any memories of the sport, great champions or characters? Pigeons were a common hobby hereabouts, and I could be wrong but I believe a bird connected to the Black Cock still holds a world record.
The footage is part of remarkable larger montage held by the wonderful Mace Media Archive, an ambitious project to archive lots of Midlands film footage and get it online. The task is huge, but steadily, new films are appearing. This snippet came from one described as ‘ATV Today: 29.05.1972: Whit Monday Look Back‘, which seems to be a collage of disparate old clips used on ATV Today, a news magazine program of the day. The whole clip is worth watching, actually.
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