4:50pm Saturday 20th March 2010
Student Joe Whitham is living the dream after winning the chance to turn his passion for the great outdoors into a career.
Eighteen-year-old Joe, from Gargrave, has started a two-year placement on the Duke of Devonshire’s Bolton Abbey Estate as an apprentice gamekeeper after completing a diploma in land management at Craven College.
He has been given the opportunity thanks to help from the Government-backed Learning and Skills Council (LSC), which has launched a drive to support training for traditional rural skills during the recession.
Joe is lapping up his work, which includes helping the gamekeepers with their dogs, vermin control, feeding pheasants and helping with the grouse and pheasant shoots. And he’s working in an area he knows well, as his mother and grandfather run Bondcroft Farm at Embsay, on the Bolton Abbey Estate.
“I am the first gamekeeper in the family and have never considered any other career than being outdoors. I absolutely love it,” said Joe.
“Gamekeeping and working in the country is a way of life. It isn’t nine-to-five and we’re often out at weekends, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“There are corporate shooting days, so we help with grouse shooting on the moors, or pheasant shooting in the woods and valleys.”
Paul Wilby, head keeper on the estate, manages five under keepers and one river keeper. He said the estate often worked with young people from Craven College and was keen to offer work experience.
“We work with apprentices to give them a good start to understanding the basics of working on a large estate,” said Paul. “That might also include burning the heather, road mending or bracken and rush spraying. It is very much a way of life and that’s why some can’t give their full commitment.
“We know Joe because his family farms on the estate. If he does well and works hard, we will do what we can to help him find a job.”
David Hodges, regional director of skills for the LSC in Yorkshire and Humber, said Joe’s work experience was a far cry from traditional industry-based apprenticeships, but was vitally important given the fact that rural employers often struggled to find suitable people for jobs requiring traditional country skills.
The LSC funds a range of land-based skills courses, including those at Craven, to ensure a supply of qualified candidates to meet skills gaps in rural areas.
In response to demand, Craven College is launching a new Level 2 full-time course in gamekeeping at the Centre for Rural and Equine Studies in September.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/trade_directory/