York Budgerigar society was formed in early 1953, after a break away from York Agricultural Society, a society in the city just for budgerigars. Ray Brown a founder member of the society, and at that first meeting, after all the Officials were sorted, it was decided to call it, “York and District Budgerigar Society”, because it covered a wide area of membership. Members eventually came from as far afield as Scarborough, Malton, Tadcaster, Harrogate, Boston Spa, Wetherby, Carlton Hustwaite and Pocklington, and within a couple of years we had a membership of over one hundred.

At that time many business men and women were among the membership. Names like Jack Talbot, Roy Wailes,  Ray and his father, John Brown, were Farmers and Market Gardeners, also Horticultural business, we eventually stored the show staging at our farm for nothing, but it was first stored at Tom Stead’s, a Rabbit fanciers house in Layerthorpe, York for a cost of £5 a year, a lot of money in those days.

 

York & Dist.B.S. like the Apicultural Society held its meetings at the Rechabite Buildings in Clifford streem York. the room we had was in a down stairs room, and it was that full of members, many of them smokers of both pipes and cigarettes, that if one was sat at the back, you could not see the fron of the room for smoke. I am pleased those days have gone and meetings are now more healthier.

It was in the first year the joiner members of the society quickly made wooden staging and stands for the one thousand two hundred birds (1,200) along with four Judging stands, the show was held in the large Drill Hall, Tower Street, and was an instant success, with (from memory) just under a thousand entries.
Trophies were given and donated by members and businesses, and we soon had trophies and shields in plenty, many of which over the years not returned and lost, but still today we have many, some are solid silver.

In the one hundred membership, many of them being female, from young to old, they took great interest in the society, and would show and keep their own birds, many were not married, so no male partner was involved, in those days many female members all over the country kept good studs of exhibition budgerigars, and did plenty of winning with them.

The open shows have been held every year since its formation, except for about two years when they had to be cancelled for different reasons.

The open shows had to start moving around also for different reasons, we left the Drill Hall because the Army wanted to fix weaponry to the floor for training purposes for the cold war, we then found home at York Race Course, we stayed there for many years, until they decided to pull the Silver Ring down for improvements, so again we had to find new premises, it was held for two years in Acomb, York and the Live Stock Centre at Murton was used for quite a few years, this place was of course the Cattle Market, it was newly built and reasonably clean, but we were bothered by the many flies and the smell was horrible, so we were pleased to leave at the end of the day. We then went back to Acomb into Low Field School, again staying for many years until two years ago it had a major fire, leaving us to find new accommodation.
We fell very lucky in finding the Askham Bryan College, which has a good lecture hall. This became our first show there held in September 2009, which went very well so we returned for and still use to date.

 

In the early days which was the fifties, our chairman Jack Talbot managed to get many well known fanciers to come and lecture, among them was the well known fancier, W Watmough (Bill), his study of the exhibition Budgerigar was far and away that of most other fanciers, hence his book, “The Cult of the Budgerigar” which has sold thousands of copies in all its Editions. It started at, “Volume one” of course and continued up to “Volume ?”. His aviary manager, Albert Gregg was a regular visitor to York & Dis.B.S. Phil Keep, and Arnold Lenard from Leeds were among other great fanciers that past their knowledge to York members.

 

Other activities the society did was bus trips to shows and aviaries, one of which was a trip to the Watmough Stud, Five Lane Ends Bradford. His stud was made up at that time of many small aviaries, when I asked him how many budgerigars he kept their, the answer was 700. Later he moved to Near Harrogate, when his Aviary and stud became much larger. That aviary was on of the most modern of the time.

 

York Budgerigar Society like many societies found keeping a regular meeting place a problem, as stated earlier we started at the Rechabite Buildings, this was eventually made into offices. We then moved to the nearby Friends Meeting Rooms for a short stay, then to many places including, The Yorkshire Hussars pub in North Street, The Bridge public house, Huntington Road Working Men’s Club on Blossom Street, Cross Keys pub at the corner of Goodramgate and so on. Our longest stay has been the Folk Hall, New Earswick. Many different village halls and rooms in the city have been the member show venues.

The sad part of the history of York Budgerigar Society, like the hobby in general, has gone down just as fast as it was built up, from the one hundred members in the fifties and sixties to a mere sixteen or so. But we still manage to carry on and hold the Open Show, but for how much longer, one never knows.

From the memory of the History of York & Dist B.S.