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Our WHC President Douglas
Morgans. WHC Club President Douglas
or "Dougy" as he is better known is easily our longest serving
WHC member and still one of the most active members and supporters of
the club. He regularly attends
committee meetings, now as our Club President. He is also very conspicuous
at our South Wales monthly meetings, Game Fairs and Field Meetings which
are never quite the same when, not present.
He
is one of the founding members of the WHC, joining up with John Buckner,
Kenneth Macleur our late President and Lawrence Workman soon after the
clubs formation. They were all
members of the local Wild Fowlers Club and through a chance meeting
with a Hungarian falconer Lorant de Bastyai, they were introduced to
falconry. They were all immediately hooked. Douglas, along with the other members knew little of falconry, although
they all had vast experience in many other field sports but under Lorant’s
expert help and tuition they soon learnt the finer arts and skills required
by the challenge of falconry.
These
were the early days of falconry in the 60's when falconry restrictions
were non-existent and the movement of birds between falconers in Europe
and the UK were unrestricted. Things were easy in those days, no licences
were required to take birds out or bring them back into the country. No such things as quarantine and at the end of these overseas meetings,
trappers would be present to sell wild caught goshawks. The top price for females was about £4 and
often males would be given away free. Dougy still regularly attends
many of these International Field meetings often in the company of Mike
Clowes, Gary Morris, Terry Large, Brian Paterson and numerous other
club members. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Germany, Austria and
Poland are all on the list of visits where Dougy and our members are
held in the highest regard. He
regularly joined John Buckner's annual pilgrimage to Thrumpster in Caithness
along with many other WHC members, staying at Keepers Cottage on Lady
Harnsworth’s Estate. One year,
on the occasion of Lady Harnsworth's birthday, Dougy, John and Lawrence
were invited to her tea party and were privileged to meet and talk at
length with her old school friend, The Queen Mother who was resident
at nearby Castle of Mey. Be rest assured that Dougy used his normal
charms on the Queen Mum. Us lesser mortals there at the time could only
envy their opportunity. Dougy
served with the Welsh Guards and saw service in Germany and Palestine. After demobilisation he became a maintenance
engineer at Tredomen Engineering Works, a company associated closely
with the National Coal Board and with whom he stayed until his retirement. I am told that many a good hawk perch was engineered
from the Tedomen works. He is
renowned for an unquenchable thirst and snuff blending capabilities
which he has now sadly had to give up (such a pity, as now, my main
source of supply for his superior blend has dried up). Always immaculately
groomed and dressed, his admiration for the opposite sex is legend. Dougy
is a great servant and supporter of the club, a gentleman of integrity
and honesty and I doubt he has been off the committee since first joining
the club all those years ago in the early 1960's.
It
is only fitting that very recently, he was made an honorary member of
the British Falconers Club in recognition of his service to falconry. Ian Blantern, Vice President
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