No, not the flight of the pigeon - the plight.
I have always detested pigeons: rats with wings, as they say. But recently I was told something about their history, something I had never even thought about, which has changed my view.
So I'd like to share it with you.
All gardeners tend to look on pigeons in the garden as a Bad Thing, because they scoff the beans, they ruin the cabbages, they pinch the cherries, and they are almost impossible to deter. But maybe, just maybe, we could have a little bit more sympathy for them, and this is why.
Back in the day, pigeons were bred to be useful: we took the basic Rock Dove, and from it we bred homing pigeons, we bred racing pigeons, and long before that, they were bred and kept for food.
Looking at how many “historic” properties have dovecotes made we wonder why we don't eat pigeon much these days. Back then, every large property would have a dovecote, containing a colony of doves (ie pigeons) whose eggs, and youngsters, would be harvested by the big house. Their droppings were used as fertiliser, because nothing was wasted in those days. Except for peasants, I suppose.
Dovecotes went out of fashion in the 19th century, mostly due to the introduction to the UK of brown rats, but I discovered - are you ready for this - that even as recently as the 1950s, most “poorer” households kept and bred pigeons, as well as rabbits, for meat: in their gardens, or on their allotments. But as we - as a nation - became richer, pigeon meat was left behind in favour of beef, and became a poor man's meal. People stopped breeding pigeons and rabbits for their own consumption, and instead, went out to work to earn money to buy beef.
OK that's a bit of a simplification, but that's the basis of it...
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