by Oskar Zovich
As I promised in the previous post I will try to provide some more information about the history of the Flying Tippler in good old Canada. But first it may be more pertinent to give you some details about the various clubs that sprung up over the last 100 years.

Too bad when we were young nobody gave much thought about making sure to keep tab on the books and what was happening in the game of flying Tipplers in Canada. Granted, the secretaries kept the record of the business but the problem started when the old timers passed on and the books got lost since they didn’t mean much to their families. But what didn’t help either was too many clubs. The very first one established in Canada was around 1910-C.T.A. – Canadian Tippler Association which in 1926 become C.N.T.A. Early 1920’s D.T.U. & C.F.T.S were started and in the 1950’s the R.C.T.C. Then in 1984 O.T.U. (Ontario Tippler Union) came into existence which transformed in to the present day CNTU and doing very well.

Now about the Tipplers; well here it is…..the first birds imported by Mr. McAree of Long Branch (Toronto) in 1903 & 1905 were Hall, Pass and Waterfall strain. In 1908 Reverend Graham brought some more of Joe Hall’s birds as previously mentioned by Brooks & Simpson in 1915 and Mr Alffie Pollard himself also imported some more in 1918. As previously mentioned Mr Lauria 1923 and Rev. Graham again in 1927 birds were of Rennison strain. However, he soon after moved to Little Rock Arkansas and took the birds with him.

In the early 1930’s Mr Doug Prud’homme and Mr Nelson Ballmer imported some more of Hall & Pass birds. I believe when Mr J. English established a new North American record of 15.55 in mid thirties he flew this type of bird. The time of 15.53 was flown on the same day by Mr Art De Clute on June 25/1933. The previous record was held by S. Lauria, with a time of 15.36 hrs. By the way on June 17/1934 Mr A.De Clute was the first one to break seventeen hours outside of Great Britain with a kit of three old hens, which were part of the young bird kit he flew in 1933 minus a cock. The new record was 17:08 hrs.

Some time in the forties Mr. William Adams and Mr Joe Daily imported more of Waterfall strain. In 1950 Adams flew a new N.A. old bird record of 17.25 hrs. Considering that our sunlight is only 15.27 hrs on long day and he was not allowed to use lights until the first bird down, makes it even more amazing.

Now comes the fifties and the era of when Mr Robert Ball who was very active in bringing in few different families of birds to Canada. In 1957 I believe, was the year he imported seven pairs from Mr J. Heaton, Early sixties from G. Eden & F. Chambers. G. Eden, I was told, was from North Ireland. F. Chambers I don’t know anything about. The birds were mostly blue and black badges rather small in size and medium face.

In the seventies he brought in a lot of birds from the lofts of J. Davis, J. Lewis, T Sheppard, J. Cullen and K. Lewis. Mr R. Ball died in April of 1976 and there was no more importation from Great Britain until 1995 when T. Rankin and R .Morden got three pairs each and I two hens from a friend of just about everyone who was lucky enough to meet him… Harry Shannon of Lisburn, Northern Ireland. After ninety five a number of times more eggs were brought in and if my memory is any good our friend Kemo flew some of those birds in his record kit of 17.31 hrs. in June/01