It was Woody Allen who first described pigeons as "rats with wings", though you doubt he would repeat this to Mike Tyson. Earlier this year, a documentary about Tyson's life-long pigeon fancying, reminiscent of Marlon Brando's boxer in On the Waterfront, was shown in which he described his first fight at the age of 10 with a boy who killed his most prized bird.
The idea that homing pigeons can give young people direction is behind a new youth project near Doncaster. It encourages teenagers who have been expelled from school to look after the birds in the hope it will prevent them from becoming involved in crime. It was inspired by a similar project for vulnerable youths in Ayrshire. "The boys had to be there every day to look after them," says Bryan Jamieson who led that project. "They did really well – they always turned up and on time."
The Doncaster scheme is being supported by the Royal Pigeon Racing Association (the Queen, who has pigeon lofts at Sandringham, is patron), but despite efforts to get younger people involved in the sport, the average age of its 30,000-strong membership is 58. "It is unfortunate," says Stewart Wardrop, the general manager. But "there are some young fanciers coming in to the sport, and it is great because it teaches them responsibility – they have to clean, feed and train the pigeons."
In China, however, the sport, which had a long history until it was banned during the Cultural Revolution, is taking off again. In January, Blue Prince – a champion racing pigeon – was sold to a Chinese buyer for $200,000 at the specialist pigeon auction in Belgium, setting a new world record. A "reserve pigeon army" has even been created by the Chinese military, which started training 10,000 messenger birds last year to be deployed in the event of communications failure. All of which makes the pedigree pigeons' mangy city cousins less "rats with wings", more poor relation.
