A Glimpse into Tippler History

Jack Prescott
(Internet Published) Feb 2001

In the December issue of "Our News", which is the bulletin of the American Flying Tippler Society, an article by Michael Beat appeared. Part of it touched a nostalgic nerve and cast my mind back to the 1930's.

Many a boy started his pigeon career by buying pigeons from the livestock market. The career mostly lasted for about 4 weeks before someone's cat killed the pigeons or the boys discarded them as a child will discard a toy. Nevertheless, some of these boys, like Michael Beat, made great progress. It was almost a ritual on Saturday afternoons in Sheffield, England, and the 1930's. All kind of men and children would hop on the tramcars to the centre of this city and visit the livestock exchange. Anything from a box of day old chickens, a goldfish, a canary, a rabbit, a mouse, a guinea pig, a kitten, a dog - to a range of pigeons including Tipplers, Tumblers and unidentifiable specimens - attractive or ugly. It certainly was a meeting place for various tipper men as well as rogues, kids and dabblers. In fact, a lot of the pigeon feed was bought there.

The public notice on the wall said it all "The management will accept no responsibility for the origin or health of this here livestock. We buy them in good faith and sell them in good faith". Many a man visited these cages and found some of his lost or stolen birds, mostly with their bands cut off and was happy to buy them, with no ideas of finding out who took them for sale to the market. An inspection of these cages often revealed some excellent looking specimens of Tipplers. If a man asked the proprietor who bough them in for sale, he would just point to the public notice and say no more. Nevertheless, if a man spoke to the proprietor and said "Look - here is a two shilling coin, if you get anything that looks like the real McCoy, then reserve them for me. I will be here 2pm next Saturday to have a look at them." The proprietor knew Tipplers and a greased palm of hand is notoriously effective.

I myself had some really fantastic Macclesfield's from there. Their style of flying took my breath away. The cost was about 18p per bird in 1935 for the very best. However, the War came in 1939 and after that everything of old Sheffield seems to vanish. The market has vanished, the tram cars have gone. A way of life has vanished.

[Internet Published Feb 2001 at http://www.tipplers.com/jack/]