Bright Young Things

Emily Damment attends the Wiltshire College Game and Wildlife Management students’ Beaters’ Day and comes away impressed with these budding young gamekeepers.

- Emily Damment

It’s fair to say that excitement levels run high on Beaters’ Days. In fact, the transformation from regimental precision during the season to utter chaos on the last day can leave many keepers pulling their hair out! But what happens when you apply this rationale to a group of teenagers, let ‘loose’ as Guns on a shoot they have been running all year? I went along to Wiltshire College Game and Wildlife Management students’ Beaters’ Day to see these budding young gamekeepers (a mixture of Level 2 and Level 3 students) in action and to find out more about their course.

I arrive at Wiltshire College’s Lackham campus in the early hours of a misty Saturday morning, and am greeted by the cheery course leader, Neil Bianchi, who escorts me into his classroom and hands me a much-needed coffee. Two beaters’ wagons are parked up in the forecourt, ready to transport us around the stunning 1,700-acre estate. It is below freezing and still not quite light, yet already the students are hovering around with guns in slips, clearly buzzing at the thought of going shooting. There are dogs everywhere, including ‘the horse’ – an enormous black Labrador belonging to a Level 2 student called Rena – and the air is filled with excited chatter. These young people have toiled all year to host shoots for the public; today is their day, and they’re raring to go.