Witness a little piece of post 2nd world war GBS history!

Grantham Bird Society have been very lucky in we have been given some very tangible history of one of its past members detailing shows from just after the second world war.

Please read on below for a fascinating insight into the birds kept and shown by a past member Mr J Dolby. Mr Dolby kept a very large number of his place cards for his birds in a lot of the shows he entered and these finally found their way into the scrap book featured below.

Images from the scrap book - The years covered by the scrap book are for a 5 year spell from 1945 to 1950.

The scrap book has a total of 261 place cards in it, covering Grantham Cage Bird Society, Nottingham & Notts Ornithological Society, Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Budgerigar & Foreign Bird Association, Derby & District Cage Bird Society, City of Leicester Hand in Hand Cage Bird Society, Lincoln Cage Bird Society and finally the Newark & District Cage Bird Society.

Mr J Dolby's place cards range from 1st to 7th along with some commended entries.

Some, maybe all of the birds exhibited by Mr Dolby were, Border Canaries, Greenfinch, Twite, Chaffinch, Budgerigar, Bramblefinch, Linnet, Goldfinch, Siskin, Redpoll and Bullfinch.

		Left is the rather plain looking scrap book that in great detail lets us see the exhibition exploits of one of past members. Mr J Dolby obviously enjoyed showing his birds and again obviously had skill with Budgies, British birds of many species and Border Canaries. As you can see from the 2 images that are shown below each page was packed with place cards from different events in the Grantham area.
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		Left, you can see a place card where Mr Dolby got awarded a 'Highly Commended' at the Grantham CBS Grand Show, sadly no records as to the year this place card was won but Mr Dolby got many 'Very Highly Commended' awards as his usual firsts, seconds etc.
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Some of the pages have more in depth notes written next to the place cards giving details of the birds that won the prize and sometimes personal notes about the bird itself, for instance in 1945 at Grantham CBS members show a Bramblefinch was sold to Newark and it took 3 firsts and 2 cups to a Novice exhibitor and was hardly ever beaten. Some birds even had nicknames with a Light Green Opaline Budgie being called the 'Old Man'
		click above image for larger version

Mention of the Novices 'Tea Urn' for most wins in the Novice classes next to this place card. click above image for larger version