When I heard the sad news about the theft of the pigeons from Ian Elstob and Dave Black, my son Oliver contacted both to get the whole story. We offered them to help and restart their own stock. Oliver took over the organisation for the journey and contacted also Harry Shannon and Steve Price, who made the reservations for our hotels.

We started the voyage with the pigeons on the 30.05.2009 towards Sunderland, where Dave and Ian recived us as old friends.

Together we drove to the hotel, which they booked and paid for us four (my wife, my son Oliver and his wife). We stayed there for two nights, which also offered us a beautiful view on the Northsee and the beach of Sunderland.

At the evening of the day they invited us all to a nice dinner.

On the next day Dave and Ian took much time for us to show us different pigeon breeders. These breeders were John Crossley, Gary Watson, Mick Groody, Rob Savage, Anth Golden and Larry Owens.

That was a unique experience which we will never forget and we want to thank everybody for it. Our visit in Sunderland ended with a dinner at Ian´s place.

On the next morning we made our way to Northern Ireland, where we met our long-term friends Harry Shannon

and Bobby Dunseith and their wives.

Harry arranged a visit for us at Manuel Fenton´s place, which we really enjoyed.

On the next day we have had a visit at the Cooley Distillery, on which we asked Anne and Harry to join us. This visit was already arranged by Oliver from Germany. On the way to the distillery Harry showed us the most beautiful parts of Northern Ireland respectively Ireland. The whole day was a impressing experience for us all and ended with the ferry transfere back to England.

In Dudley it was Steve Price who welcomed us and guided us to the hotel. After that he showed us his pigeons and he also took time for us to see different breeders.

The breeders were Paul Bowden (down left), Lee Price (down right), 

Paul Green (down left) and Jimmy Johnson (down right) and all were very kind and hospitable like all the people we have been before.