How to Be English (2015)
“Is it that peculiar link that working-class English males have to the wooden shack down the garden, full of nameless intricacies, that pigeon racing seems so much like a national sport? Or is it something to do with the squadrons of pigeons that used to descend on Trafalgar Square in London – until dealt with in one of the first acts of the new mayor of London in 2000?
That isn’t clear. What is certain is that people have kept and bred pigeons in these islands, or used their homing instincts to... deliver messages, for centuries and probably well into Roman times. But the sport of racing pigeons was actually developed by the Belgians, and it was only when the king of Belgium, the brutal Leopold II, gave the British royal family breeding birds that the sport began to take off over here in a big way. The first English pigeon race was held in 1881, encouraged mainly because the Belgians used to start their races from southern England.
Since then, the sport has been declining steadily – along with cloth caps and whippets – though it is attracting big money in the USA and so will almost inevitably be re-imported at some point.MoreLess
That isn’t clear. What is certain is that people have kept and bred pigeons in these islands, or used their homing instincts to... deliver messages, for centuries and probably well into Roman times. But the sport of racing pigeons was actually developed by the Belgians, and it was only when the king of Belgium, the brutal Leopold II, gave the British royal family breeding birds that the sport began to take off over here in a big way. The first English pigeon race was held in 1881, encouraged mainly because the Belgians used to start their races from southern England.
Since then, the sport has been declining steadily – along with cloth caps and whippets – though it is attracting big money in the USA and so will almost inevitably be re-imported at some point.MoreLess
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