"As a teenager I got hooked on flying tipplers but was not able to breed and fly them for the next 20
years. In the early 90’s Rex Leon gifted me some Lovatts that reignited my enthusiasm. He also kept
telling me stories about tipplers in England and Ireland that flew for 18 to 20 hours. Almost
unbelievable, but when the opportunity arose to spend a few weeks in London I had to go see for
myself if Rex’s tales were true. Brian Rose who has been the Secretary of the NTU for a very long
time and a friend of Rex made me welcome in the UK and I could not have found a better host and
traveling companion. Since I knew nothing about the tippler landscape in the UK I was completely in
his care."
"Brian arranged for us to visit Harry Shannon in Ireland. Harry, a bachelor (widower) at the time kept us in his home, cooked for us and introduced us to Bobby Dunseith and other tippler masters in the area. Perhaps my enthusiasm about tipplers and my curiosity (I kept asking questions without stopping) was so high that by the second day Harry and Bobby had gifted me 6 pairs of young birds. The last day was spent scrambling to learn what it would take to ship tipplers from Ireland to California and also buying shipping containers. In the evenings we visited with tipplers fliers again but this time in the Pubs and listened to the flying stories they had to tell. My best impression of the visit is the friendship bonds that the tippler sport has formed amongst the fliers and club members."
"Brian and I returned to London leaving Bobby and Harry to do all the work to complete all export and import formalities ( and there were many) necessary to get the tipplers to the US. It probably took them at least two weeks of work to complete all the bureaucratic requirements and vet. procedures before the birds were safely on the aircraft en route to Rex’s loft. Funny thing is that they kept insisting that they had no out of pocket costs for the paperwork and vet bills. In retrospect we tippler fliers in the US who enjoying flying the descendants from the Irish birds owe more thanks to Bobby, Brian and Harry than we realized."
"Brian and I spent the next four days driving from sunrise to late at night visiting some of the numerous tippler fliers (including David Anslow, Paul Bowden, Colin Bristow and Brian White) widely distributed all over England. I have many fond remembrance of the people we met and vivid memories of their loft’s and birds. Anslow, Bowden and White also graciously contributed 2 pairs of young birds each to the tippler migration to the US. Again Brian Rose did all the work to get the Anslow, Bowden and White strains to the US. I was not able to help much because my vacation quickly came to an end. Brian once again got the 6 pairs of English tipplers on the aircraft and the rest is history. The number of good strains and the quality of the birds in the lofts of several US fliers went from one or two to many, due largely to David Fullers untiring efforts at raising young birds from the imports and sharing the young with members of the club."
"But these imports have yet to break the flying record set by Michael Beat in 1992. "