All in a day’s work Show security specialist Douglas Hinckley

Douglas Hinckley on running the security for 160 shows a year and happy endings for lost teddy bears

I was brought up in Hickstead and my family has a lifelong interest in horses. My father was a master and my mother did a lot of showing. As a child I wanted to be an astronaut, before I learnt how incredible it was to command soldiers. I bunked out of Cirencester [Royal Agricultural College] in 2000 and spent three years in the police. With that out of my system I spent five years as a cavalry officer, serving on two tours of Iraq and East Africa.

I can remember starting to

ride — we lived on Dartmoor and my first pony was a black Shetland called Gilbert. My first time hunting was on the lead-rein attached to Ronnie Wallace, who gave me my first brush, which is still hanging in the downstairs loo.

My mother was Ronnie Wallace’s secretary in the 1970s

and 1980s, and he introduced my parents before he was chairman of the Masters of Foxhounds Association. I competed as a kid, did the usual Pony Club stuff, then I tried services riding while I was in the cadets at school and played polo in the army. When I moved up to Staffordshire, I started hunting with the Meynell, where my father was a master until he died in a hunting accident in 1982. I took over the mastership for three seasons, but I sadly had to resign due to work commitments.

I ran the [event security] business quietly for a few

years while I was still serving, doing a couple of shows a year while on leave, and when I had enough interest I signed my decommission and went from there. I set up in 2008 and have been flat out since 2012. We now do 160 shows a year, including

Hickstead, Royal Windsor, three-day events and others such as Wimbledon. We also do close protection work, and used to do a lot of anti-piracy work and goldmine security in West Africa.

Security starts with being the first person that a competitor or

member of the public sees when they arrive on site. Our interaction with them will influence how they feel for the next 12 hours. We are very much based around safety, so work in conjunction with health and safety people and, for example, electricians and marquee companies.

Keeping out unwanted people — those intent on committing crime — is another side to the job. We do have a terrorism wing and work with the police, then there is the routine security — incident command and control.

And I greatly enjoy my military job

(I still serve part-time).

For me, the most rewarding

aspect is giving a career to guys who have left the armed forces or the emergency services, seeing that they enjoy it and that we can function outside of the uniform. People saying thank you is probably the most fulfilling thing on a daily basis.

Four years ago, we reunited a five-year-old girl with a teddy

bear she lost at Royal Windsor. We posted a picture of the teddy wearing one of our badges on social media, holding a piece of paper that read, “Help me get my mummy back”. It reached about half a million people and the public helped us track her down. That was lovely. Another memorable moment was during the 2009 Hickstead Derby. We were called about a cast horse in the FEI stables. I turned up, as did the stable manager, and we righted one of William Funnell’s horses, Cortaflex Mondriaan, who eight hours later went on to win the Derby for the third time.

Most people are delightful,

from international riders to the youngest child on her first ridden. The great part of the job is that you see the same people every year and make some fantastic friends.

‘We righted Cortaflex Mondriaan; eight hours later he won the Derby’

The hard bit is when you come

across unpleasant people who call you or your staff every name under the sun; that real depth of hatred, when all you are trying to do is help, can be soul destroying. It’s the one thing we probably shouldn’t take personally, but because we all have pride in what we do, it’s hard. The impact on family and social life is also tough. My fiancée, Lucy Halford, and I live on the road from Easter until mid-October and then there are obviously things going on in the winter as well.

I couldn’t do this without her.