Haven Lofts

Geoff Newsome – My Story

My first encounter with birds and pigeons in general was at a young age when I used to go with my grandad to a local mill to load grain in his lorry, an old thing that looked like model “T” ford and had a big rubber horn on one side so it was an early one. We used to go to the Eggbridge Mill near Wrexham every Wednesday after school with him and while he loaded we would go off exploring the roof spaces’ and lofts looking for birds to catch.

I kept a few of these for a while but never seriously, I had an uncle who lived in London (my mother’s brother) and he would come and stay with us in the summer for a holiday. Sometime’s he would take some birds from the mill home to keep. This was the man who built my first coop in our garden where I kept all sorts. After leaving school and starting work I had no time for the birds and for a long time I never thought of them. But like most people you never lose the bug and after marrying and getting my own home I started again with grutters of all colours and sizes, one very nice grizzle I called the Fair Isles Pullover because he was so multi coloured he could have been knitted from different colours of wool.

From them I got Sion’s Reds and alot of Gay Pieds, one of my favourite Sadle Backs got the name “Seagull”, when in flight he looked just like one. I kept these until about 1970 when a change was needed!!

I was working split shifts by then driving lorries and had afternoons to myself so I would go for walks. One day I saw some birds’ circling a house so I had a wander down and saw an old man in the garden (Frank Gilbertson) who raced with his son (Tommy), this chance meeting led to me popping around on a regular basis, when time allowed. From this came some new birds. They had received some new stock that they didn’t like so I had a look and liked them so we did a deal and I bought the birds some Germain Imbrecht via (Ralph Wilcox). He was an American N.A.T.O officer who worked and was based in Belgium at the N.A.T.O headquarters in charge of training over there.

I bred and raced these birds with success, so in 1985 I made arrangements with Ralph Wilcox to visit him in Belgium to buy some more birds form Imbrecht Direct, I went to Germain’s Farm house with my wife and my then young daughter and we were made very welcome. The stock birds were housed above a cattle shed in an old hay loft in a big pen made from wire and covered in old paper corn bags to stop the drafts.

Whilst looking at his birds Germain lifted a corn stock off the floor where a cat had a litter of kittens and offered my daughter one. I remember the visit like it was yesterday and the birds I bought raced very well back in the UK for a number of years. Always looking forward; the next big fad that came along were George Busshearts and I did a swap with Percy Greenslade of Manchester almost all my Imbrecht’s for his family of Busshearts carrying the lines of “Little Black”, “Pluto”, etc. all the old lines, eventually these birds were mixed with birds from Emlin Williams (Prestatin) again Busshearts, mainly birds from Ray Forbe’s “willy wonker”, “powder hall I”, “Rays Pide”, “Litte Pide”, “Bonny Hos”, “Dot Head” etc. These birds have bred such birds as “Stud Topper”, “Twerler” etc, etc. Five or so years after this cross I bought all the birds Harry Loundes of Gwersyet, Wrexham had, all from or off Morfa Lofts more of the Ray Forbes lines.

These birds have made my modern day strain of birds that have kept me at the top for 20 years and they show no sign of deterioration winning from 67 miles to 427 miles and helping me become premier prize winner for 19 out of 20 years in my local club and winning many good federation results.