After a few years he decided to sell the transporter and we had a deal that saw me keep the same customers on a route that took in Millbrook, Invermore, Larne, Ballycarry, Carrick, Ballynure, Ballyclare, Kingsmoss, Glengormley and Doagh clubs, before picking up some Muckamore and Antrim pigeons that raced in Section B. Some mornings the weather was not what you would be looking for regarding training pigeons but I didn't want to let anyone down as there were some men who sent regardless of the weather, and I ended up liberating maybe less than 100 pigeons on such days, which left me out of pocket when cost of petrol was taken into account. On other days, particularly during the young bird season, I had to use a pull out rack at the rear of the trailer to take hampers with around 1200 pigeons on board. No fortunes were made , and it was always a case of, don't give up the day job.
During his time as owner of the transporter Bernard one day arrived at my workshop with it severely damaged ,having had the middle deck of the 5 ripped completely out . The only good thing was the fact that this had happened on his way home from a toss, and there were no pigeons in it. He had been coming down the hill through the village of Moira when a lorry pulled out of a side street into his path, and as he swerved to avoid the rear of this vehicle he suddenly saw this lorry was towing another truck with a chain. The driver of the second truck realised he was not going to get across the road in time to avoid Bernard's car and hit the breaks causing the chain to tighten up. Possibly travelling a little over the speed limit ,and with the weight of the trailer behind the car, Bernard was unable to get stopped in time and passed between the other two vehicles with the chain skidding up over the bonnet on to the car roof, and then straight through the middle deck of the transporter, destroying the complete deck. Serious stuff with thankfully no injuries to anyone but the transporter.
In my time with the transporter things generally went to plan, although one day traveling towards the village of Donacloney I looked in the mirror to see the trailer listing to starboard. On stopping to investigate I discovered I had only 3 wheels as the bearing in one of the hubs had gone, unfortunately so had the wheel and I never found it again, with the pigeons having to be liberated in the local church yard. On another occasion with around 1000 young birds on board my car started to lose power as I approached Banbridge, culminating in it coming to a halt on the incline of the Main Street blocking the lane completely. My ears were burning that day as quite a few irate drivers had to reverse back down the street to let me seek help from a nearby garage. Fortunately a new set of plugs set me on my way again towards my destination between Loughbrickland and Newry.
My usual liberation point was just off the main road a few miles short of Newry where I turned left into the Buskill Road and let the birds out over a field of barley. The name Buskill may ring a bell in a few people's minds as one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles was committed at the very spot where I liberated the pigeons. I remember well coming around the bend in the main road on the morning of Thursday 31st of July in 1975 and just about to put my indicators on to turn left into the Buskill Road as usual. But the scene that met me told me I wouldn't be liberating that morning. A partially destroyed minibus sat on the roadside cordoned off by many policemen on the scene, something extremely serious had happened in the early hours of the morning at this place. The minibus was that of The Miami Showband who had been playing at a dance in Banbridge on the previous night, and had been stopped by a bogus military checkpoint as they made their way home. As those manning the checkpoint attempted to place a bomb in the minibus it exploded killing the two handling it. The band members who had been lined up on the roadside then came under fire from the other armed men present. Three of the bandsmen died at the scene and two were injured, young men who had been bringing music and happiness to dancers just up the road an hour or so earlier gunned down in the darkness on a lonely roadside, what a tragedy.
Probably the most memorable stopping point was my last one each trip at the loft of a man who lived right beside the runway of Belfast International Airport. Quite often we would be in conversation when a plane took off about 100 yards from us, with the noise so deafening that you needed to be a lip reader. The pigeons on his loft roof never batted an eye, they were so used to this happening day in and day out.
On one occasion I convoyed the Ballyclare clubs pigeons to a race in my transporter, as for some reason or other there were restrictions on crossing the border. The birds were race marked on the Saturday morning, and I set off to take them to Cranfield which was as far as I could go on the shore of Carlingford Lough. My convoyer was ex fancier Jim (Buster) Campbell who enjoyed the trip down through the seaside town of Newcastle and on to the race point that we had to pick ourselves. We eventually spotted a lane leading down to the water's edge and released the birds in good weather, measurements for this point were unknown, so Secretary John Robinson just deducted 50 miles from our nearest racepoint ,Sutton, and calculated the velocities accordingly. One thing I do remember was that once the pigeons were liberated there was no room to turn the car and trailer at the release point, and I had to reverse about 200 yards back up the narrow lane, not an easy task when you can't see the back corners of the trailer.
Buster lived in Millvale on the edge of Ballyclare where I was brought up, and my mother used to tell the story about being wakened about 5.00am one summer's morning by a strange sound.
She then put her head back down on the pillow only to hear the same noise again, whereupon she woke my father who was fast asleep, having spent the previous night watching for pigeons from France. He got out of bed and looked out the bedroom window to see Buster reaching for another handful of fine gravel from the side of the road to throw at the bedroom window. He had been down our back garden and found a pigeon on the landing board of the loft ,and was trying to get my father up out of bed to clock it.
There are many pigeon training trailers on the road these days offering fanciers the chance to get their birds fit during the racing season, although with quite a few different types of pigeon ailments that we never heard off back in my day, some men prefer to do their own training.
Milne Mairs
Liberating at Buskill Road