We fly under the loft name of Harrison and Hull with the partnership consisting now of Dave and Janet Hull and Janet’s Mum Beryl Harrison, sadly Vic Harrison passed away in October 2005. Vic Harrison had racing pigeons in his blood, with his Father and both his Grandfathers racing it was inevitable that he got the bug and he continued to race throughout his life on his own and as Mr & Mrs Harrison after marrying Beryl with only a short break due to work commitments. He also was involved in the administration side of the Sport all his life and this again was started in Childhood when at the age of ten he was Secretary of the Walmer Bridge Boys Club. Beryl took over Vic’s current secretarial duties when he died and is still Secretary of Old Lodge HS and the North Wests Premier race Bamfords Gold Ring Race that was the brain child of Vic along with Alan Bamford. This race pays out around £30,000 each year. Dave’s love of racing pigeons also started in childhood when his brother Johnny ten years his senior began racing pigeons. Dave then built his own loft at the age of 8 with childhood friend David Mayor from scrap wood, local fanciers gave the pair a few pigeons which they looked after and trained on the railway even though they were unable to race due to lack of money. For two years Dave learnt how to look after pigeons properly and he feels that those two years gave him invaluable knowledge in how to be a good stockman. At ten Dave began to fly with his brother Johnny and flew racing pigeons on and off with Johnny and on his own until 1995 when he married Janet. Dave and Janet started their racing partnership in 1996 flying as Mr & Mrs Hull but sharing the stock birds with Vic & Beryl. It soon became apparent that Janet also had racing Pigeons in her blood, as she instinctively knew how to condition and get the best out of a racing pigeon. Both partnerships raced their pigeons naturally and enjoyed much success winning at club, fed and combine level as well as specialist races.

Dave Hull and Vic Harrison after winning 1st & 2nd Section West NWCC 2004 Falaise 350 miles

In 2004 after Vic and Beryl moved house it was decided to fly as one partnership that of Harrison and Hull and move away from flying natural opting for a widowhood system. We moved the pigeons to the new address during the winter of 2003 and stopped the race birds within a week to what was to be the new stock loft. The new race loft was built by Clyesdale Lofts to our specifications and was erected at the beginning of March 2004. The loft is 76 foot long and 10 foot deep with a 2ft full-length corridor with internal corridor doors to close individual sections off. The loft has three integral aviaries, four widowhood sections housing twelve boxes in each, two sections that are railed with sloping floors for race hens and three sections for young birds with turn round perches. The stopped race birds were in their new loft by the middle of March and settled in well winning 14 x 1^st prizes during the old bird season including 2 x 1^st Section C (West) NWCC at Falaise 350 miles and Saintes 560 miles. The main priority with the 2004 youngsters was to retain a good team to yearling stage to replace the stopped birds, so they were only lightly raced.

Although the 2005 Season was twarted with problems with Vic fighting cancer and Janet also suffering serious health problems we still managed to put up some excellent performances in the BICC inc. 3^rd Sect 87^th Open Allencon 385 miles 3101 birds. The young birds were even better with our prize winnings exceeding £3750. We won 1^st Section C (West) & Open NWCC Futurity Race (bred by W & M Brown St Helens and raced by us), also 2^nd 4^th & 5^th Section C (West), 1^st 3^rd 4^th & 5^th NWCC Gold ring race and 1^st Section West Bamfords Gold Ring race.

We fly in Old Lodge HS a local club with good strong competition which competes weekly in the New Lancashire Fed and South Lancs Combine which has as members some of the most renowned fanciers in the North West of England. All members of Old Lodge including us are on the extreme West of the Fed and Combine. We are also members of the North West Classic Club, National Flying Club, British Internationall Classic Club and Eccles Two Bird.

As we are not young bird specialists we do not place many youngsters on the darkness opting for natural young bird racing and 80% of our youngsters are lighty raced having only 2 or 3 races thus allowing them to mature well to yearling stage. We concentrate our efforts on Old Bird racing at all levels and whilst we fly extremeley well on the short sprint land races our true love of the sport is at the middle distance racing from 320 miles to 560 miles across the channel. We are working hard at developing a long distance family to compete well at the 600 mile plus distance and one day We hope to fulfill Vic's dream of timing in race time at the 900 mile plus race of Palamos. On our very first attempt at Tarbes 737 miles we sent 2 x 2 year old cocks both returned home with Parky finishing 363rd Open NFC Tarbes 2007 this was after he had been 9th Section L and 18th Open NFC Cholet 2007 6,798 birds. The future looks promising for our distance dreams. 

2008

Unfortunately in the New Year of 2008 Dave suffered Severe Kidney Failure which resulted in him having to begin Kidney Dialysis and also go through the rigorous testing procedure for a Kidney Transplant. Even though he was extremley poorly with his kidneys  working at only 10% capacity we started the 2008 season as normal. By May he had deteriorated to crisis point and he was put on dialysis which was four x 1 hour sessions each day which was then was changed later on in the year to one 8 hour session each day. Even with dialysis Daves kidneys worked at 8% during 2008 and he was in such a bad way that Racing pigeons was hard work. Even so we managed some really excellent performances 2008 which was testament to the excellent team of birds we have.