How To Whittle Away A Case Of ‘Stick Envy'

A well-chosen stick is a much-loved tool of the beater’s trade, so here Mike Swan explains how to make sure yours is a cut above the rest

- Mike Swan

Keep your eyes and ears open, and your mouth shut,” said Dad, “and make sure you keep in line, halfway between the beaters on either side.” I was only eight years old when those instructions were delivered, as we traveled in the old Ford Anglia to my first day’s beating at Clandon Park, near Guildford in Surrey.

To my mind, they are as valid today as they were in the mid-1960s, as was the next bit — to resist the temptation to shout and holler, even if the others did so, and to keep my stick tapping, even when the head keeper stopped the line.

Dad issued me with a nicely seasoned straight hazel rod, with the further instruction that, though it was a beating stick, I did not need to thrash things so hard that it broke before the end of the day.

I remember noticing that most of the beating team had stuck with handles or knobs, clearly favorite tools that meant something. On most days, someone would emerge from a drive with a new one they had cut when the line was stopped and I soon learned techniques for quick cutting so that you did not get a rebuke from the keeper for falling behind.

Stick envy Daft as it sounds, stick envy struck me very early on. How was it that these old boys — and even many of the younger ones, who were only a decade older than me — had such beautiful pieces of wood, when I had a simple hazel rod? The answer, of course, was that they enjoyed an interesting stick and were always on the lookout for the next one.