Danny, your pigeon fancier's tale reminds me of one I once heard. One of the hire car company drivers that drove Dan-Air crews to/from outstation crew changes was once a police officer. One of his colleagues had been in the pigeon owning fraternity, but was also confined to the station doing clerical work having crossed his superior. It happened that a party of prisoners, having had their fates pronounced by the local beak, were to be returned to prison. No-one else was available to drive them so he was given the task. He was to go straight there and straight back, was that clearly understood? "Yes, Sir", though thinking that now at last there was a chance to release his birds that day, at the time and place decreed.
So it was, with prisoners in the back of a Black Maria he called at his home and put a basket full of his feathered friends in with them. He wasn't going to lock them in, and when he told them, they were to open the rear door, release the birds, and then close the door again. He would be watching closely and woe betide them if they deviated an iota from his instructions. Did they understand? "Yes, Officer!".
All went splendidly according to plan. The pigeons were released at exactly the right time and location, and those retained at Her Majesty's pleasure duly delivered to their Pied a Terre. He returned for yet more mind numbingly clerical duties to the nick, though in quiet satisfaction of a job well done. Not much later however he was called to the office of his superior, who had received a report from a member of the public that had been following a Police van. The rear door had briefly opened and a flock of pigeons had emerged and flown off. Did he know anything about it, being a known fancier and all....? He emerged a little later knowing that the end of his paper pushing days were now but a distant pinprick of light at the end of a very dark tunnel indeed.
