Above and beyond

The first shoot of the season proves an absolute cracker for Simon Garnham, thanks to the hard graft of the new leaseholder and keeper

Gamekeepers can be understandably jittery on early-season days. Birds are inclined to wander out of cover crops and, even if they are holding, don’t always show well in the autumn sunshine. New drives are unproven and new members of beating and shooting teams are equally unknown quantities.

So I was impressed and reassured when I arrived at the Old Church shoot near Brightlingsea in Essex to find Liam Fearis relaxed and confident. Liam has recently leased the full sporting rights to the shoot and taken the huge step of becoming a self-employed keeper. As a friend, I was keen to see how he is faring under the pressure and, as I wrote in the summer (Decoying over fields of gold, 25 July) I jumped at the chance to join his midweek syndicate for the first of their 150-bird days.

I am slightly in awe of anyone who can make a living from gamekeeping. Costs are exceptionally high; wheat is currently going at £150 per ton and poults at nearly £4 a bird. The risks are soaring too. Teams of Guns rightly can be demanding while landowners have expectations that can be hard to reach. Maintaining a happy team of beaters and pickers-up can take the leadership skills of Winston Churchill in his pomp. Then there is the bottom line to consider, while trying to keep partner and children happy. Keepers have to recoup costs such as Gun buses, beaters’ trailers and even a combine harvester in Liam’s case. Plus the good old British weather.

The list of worries seems endless.

But Liam comes from a long shooting background, so he knows what he’s talking about: “As one of three boys with a single mum, we didn’t have a lot.

But I’m fortunate that my grandfather Les Salmon, who worked as a keeper at Holkham Hall, and a great-uncle, who was a keeper at Sandringham, have been really

Retrieving a French partridge to handGamekeeper Liam Fearis with his daughter Evie