NATIVE HARDBILLS
A LONG with my brother, I started keeping birds when I was about 11. Originally, I had a mixture of finches and canaries but we weren’t really interested in breeding them - we just liked having them in an aviary in the garden. We had rabbits and poultry in the garden too. Shortly after I’d turned 13, my focus changed to budgies and I started breeding them in a cage in my dad’s shed. I did so well that I was soon supplying the local petshops with budgies for £3 each!
I used to visit the local market in Northallerton, where a chap called Arthur Stanley from Middlesbrough came on a Wednesday. He had this really long bench with all sorts of animals on it:
