When Kevin died, Smith lost interest in his pigeons. Six years ago, Smith's teenage son Kevin was murdered – stabbed by three young men after they stole his scooter. Do they ever congratulate each other when a rival has lured away a good bird? Smith talks about his relationship with fellow doomen – they can be friendly, but there is always an intense rivalry. "If it's a nice day, are you going to sit in there, or stand outside, fly your birds and get a tan?" The pigeons never give me grief!" He laughs. Nowadays, Smith's own wife tells him he cares more for his pigeons than he does for her. Smith says his grandmother used to throw pigeons out of the window when his grandad kept them in the house. It has always been regarded as a man's sport, and every man has a story about the domestic strife the birds have caused. Smith says he's out there flying two to three hours a night, maybe all day at the weekend, and sometimes he can go weeks without a sniff of a pigeon. You need to be patient in the doo business. When he gets a hen, he's so sharp, so quick." How many birds has the Tillinator caught? "About 25." How long has he had him? "Five years." "That's the one they're all trying to catch, but naebody can catch him. The birds are kept from mating for as long as possible before being released in order to "build up steam". "They blow themselves up to try to make themselves the Don Juan of the pigeon world." Sure enough, the Tillinator's chest becomes even more plumped. He takes a hen out of her cage and holds it out towards the Tillinator, to demonstrate his reaction. He opens the hut and shows me his favourite, a Dutch bird he calls the Tillinator – plump and primped.
"There are birds who will catch a hen when they meet it, nae trouble, and there are other birds I've had for five years who have never caught a single pigeon." Smith says human skill plays a part in his sport, but most of it is down to the bird. That's how I got hooked." The most he's paid for a pigeon is £75. Back then, you could buy pigeons for 50p.
He and my dad used to take me to the wee pet shop, and the guy used to wear a long white coat, like a doctor. "My earliest memory is of my grandad flying them 40 years ago. He was on the beer last night, he says, as he pours us coffee. He's looking towards the sky and it's hurting his eyes. It's 9am on a hot Sunday in August, and Smith is hungover. While flying doos does not necessarily keep them on the straight and narrow, it does keep them on a path that is a bit straighter and narrower than it might have been.
Doomen tend to live tough, hard-drinking, sometimes lawless lives. Smith lives in Muirhouse, a part of Edinburgh far removed from the cosy intellectualism of the festival. Traditional pigeon fanciers often regard doomen as pirates.įlying doos is a working-class sport in Scotland. The bird is then legitimately theirs and is often sold on. As soon as their pigeon lands on the roof with its prospective new partner, the dooman whips down the net and bags the bird. Male and female pouters are hot, and they know it – they attract other pouters back to their hut, and that's where the doomen come in.
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