A vital role — for life

Ignore the naysayers; keepering is a wonderfully rewarding job from beginning to end, says Liam Bell

- Liam Bell

I vividly remember having a conversation with a retired gamekeeper in the early 1980s, when I was on a Government-sponsored Youth Training Scheme, about gamekeeping and its future. He was pretty adamant that things had changed for the worse, that there was little or no future in gamekeeping, and I would have been better choosing a different career.

By contrast, 12 months later when I was offered and accepted my first full-time position as an under keeper in west Wales, my then head keeper was pretty upbeat. While he missed the old ways and the old days, he understood change and accepted it. Furthermore, he had been born within sight of the Monmouthshire Hunt kennels and had always wanted to go into hunt service, but his father forbade him as he said there was no future in it.

Inevitable

His point, which is as true today as it was then, was that change was inevitable, that we should accept it and adapt, and above all else do something we are passionate about and enjoy. That’s not to say he didn’t like being a gamekeeper, it is just that he would have preferred to have hunted a pack of hounds.

I am often asked what I would consider the perfect gamekeeping job and have to confess that I sometimes struggle to come up with an answer. This is because keepering is so varied, and what is a fantastic opportunity for one person doesn’t always suit another. It is, of course, very much down to individual taste.

All I can say by way of advice to those who are starting their careers is to focus on what you want when you have decided what it is you are actually looking for. Keep working and giving your current job your all, then when that job of a lifetime does come up you will have both a proven track record and a first-rate reputation among your peers.