NORTHERN ROLLER CLUB

By Dave Willans

My family and I had an amazing holiday this year, where I had the chance to show my wife and kids my country of origin and some of my past. During our couple of weeks I managed to spend time looking at some English Show Birmingham Rollers, which were a large part of my past, are a large part of my present and hopefully my future. My first look at Rollers was at my long time friend, John Weir’s house. I have known John since I was about 12, over 40 years ago.

John is the secretary of the Northern Roller Club,which is probably the best known roller club in England catering for both flying and show Birmingham Rollers. He has limited room in his garden, so has a couple of small breeding lofts for both flying and show Birmingham Rollers, a holding loft for show birds and a couple of kit lofts. We stayed at John’s for three or four nights and he flew his birds every day. John has some good performers in his two kits and is putting some interesting colours into the flyers, such as Opal, Andalusian, faded and more. He had a bad season last year with the show birds, losing a number of good youngsters. He had only bred a few this year but there were some good ones among them, including an outstanding Yellow hen. He showed me some good adults, including some excellent Mealies which has inspired me on a Mealy breeding project, which should come to fruition next year when I will pair Red chequers carrying bar together or to a Blue bar. One Mealy had won the eye fault class at the Northern Roller Club show, last year but his eyes had cleared up so he will be

showing him in the open class next year.

I took a day out from my family holiday to go to see Jeff Davies and his birds. Jeff is a highly respected Show

Birmingham Roller fancier and the author of the only book on Show Birmingham Rollers. John drove from South

Shields to Darlington, where I was staying with my uncle. Mike Taylor, the famous Roller judge and fancier

(currently without birds) from New South Wales, who was also on holiday in Darlington, staying with his sister,

 joined us at my uncle's.  We picked Robert Bennion, the noted artist and Roller flyer, up on the way.

The four of us arrived at Jeff’s place on the other side of England to a welcome cup of tea and hot pies. Firstly we looked at

 Jeff’s stock birds, who were approaching the end of the breeding season, mostly still feeding babies, as it was July

 when I was there. They were an amazing collection of quality Rollers most of them being NPA Champions, which

means that they had won three or more NPA Champion Certificates at different shows under different judges.

It really was an awesome sight  for a dedicated Show Birmingham Roller fancier such as myself.

All of Jeff’s stock birds were full of power, an abundance of width and frontal with very full necks but still having the fine beak and expression of the true Show Birmingham Roller.

Simply looking at the photographs I have seen of the winners at NRC shows, I have often thought that they appeared overdone, with too much head and neck but when I saw them in real life, they were well balanced and very desirable.  I would have loved to have been able to bring acouple of pairs home with me. Perhaps in the future we might bring a few pairs in, Jeff did say that he would be happy to let some good pairs come to Australia and bask in the sun.  He had quality bird in most colours including Tortoiseshell, Blue chequer, Bronze chequer,Red  chequer, Mealy, Blue bar, Yellow and more. We looked at young birds of various ages, but obvious quality. Jeff said he hadn’t really culled any birds as yet, but had a fair idea which birds were going to make the grade from observing them in the nest.  He had only given away about 13 birds and they were mainly birds with eye faults. There was a large number of birds I would have loved to have brought back to Australia as I have already mentioned. It is only the expense, quarantine hassles, bird flu etc. etc. that is stopping me. Ricky Maslen and Dwight Wyatt from Lismore have both expressed a keen interest in visiting England for a look at the Show Birmingham Rollers, with a view to importing some birds and after this trip I certainly think it would be worthwhile, the birds I have seen would be a huge boost to our own.

We walked to the local pub and sampled a couple of pints of the local brew before the drive back across the country. We stopped at Robert’s place on the way back to watch his birds fly and look at some of his amazing colour projects.  His birds were spectacular to watch, with good performances from most of the kit. They still hadn’t landed when we walked to the local pub before the final leg of the journey.