Some ten minutes after my maths lesson had started, a lanky kid with a pale complexion and a wide grin entered the classroom, his arms flapping in what he meant to be a swagger. He gave me a nod of acknowledgement (not of apology) and an ‘alright mate’ then took a seat at the back of the classroom.
Goldie, as I shall call him, saw school as a necessary inconvenience that had little baring on his life. He was from a travelling background and had grown up around a culture of what could be described as entrepreneurial deal making. He was all about making money and hunting animals and frequently combined the two. He was determined to live off the grid, building his own home, having his own money which would not be saved in banks or shared with the taxman. Some laughed at his ideas but it was clear he was both bright and resourceful and I found myself rooting for him despite having a few glaring differences of opinion.
I would come to know him better as he’d get an early bus and then seek out the company of a teacher whilst he waited for the other kids to arrive. More often than not it was me because he knew of my passion for the outdoors and wildlife. He had a passion for it too albeit in a very different way.
Goldie was a hunter. He had grown up in a hunting tradition, coursing hares and lamping deer with his lurchers. He also shot game birds with his dad. He scoffed at my argument that our wildlife should be preserved and protected. To him they were resources to be eaten or sold. He had learned about the rhythms of the countryside in the same way I had, but chose not to observe and monitor the environment but to engage with it directly.
And so began a battle of wills that neither of us would win. Goldie would try and get me to experience the thrill of a hunt, (totally unconcerned about the breaking of teacher student boundaries not to mention the illegality of the act) and I would try and get him to shoot wildlife with a camera not a gun, and find peace in growing the already impressive body of rural knowledge he’d accumulated.
We discussed the impact of hunting with Goldie arguing the deer population was large enough to sustain the loses caused by poaching, google the admittedly huge population of Roe Deer in the UK. He grudgingly accepted some areas were devoid of deer due to poaching but insisted the population would bounce back. He was keen to stress that he hunted deer responsibly and seasonally and that hunting rats with his terriers was a service to farmers.
He would argue that if we ate meat, we couldn’t argue with it being hunted and brought to the table. Someone had to do it right? Why not him. . The legality of it was ridiculous, he stated. He refused to acknowledge the animals or the land they grazed were owned by anyone. It was all his playground and everything on it was fair game. I knew the land ownership issue was one of principle to him but he wouldn’t discuss the number of poachers operating regionally and how that multiplier effect might diminish the deer population.
People have been poaching forever and my distaste at the practice didn’t extend to Goldie himself. He irritated the life out of some of my colleagues (and me sometimes) and he could be insufferably crude at times but he was charismatic, enjoyed the banter and was surprisingly self deprecating given the cockiness he liked to portray in front of his peers. The bravado and the bluster of the class clown contrasted with the lonely late nights lamping and the grisly nature of butchering the animals he caught.
One day he brought me the ‘twigs’ or antlers of a Roe Deer he’d caught on the lamp as if it would placate me. He was always seeking my approval for his hunting. “Howay man, ye kna the craic,” he’d say, “ye want to be oot there an all.”
He was right. I did want to be out there. But not to hunt. It saddened me because we both understood that the countryside offered us an escape from the worries of the world, a space in which we could breathe and be alone. We both had an appreciation of the creatures and plants and the effects of seasonal change. We’d both acquired knowledge of our area, what grew where, what nested where, what could be heard here or smelt there. And that was enough for me.
Life was beginning to get tougher for Goldie. He was totally unconcerned by his impending GCSEs and his relationship with many of the other kids had deteriorated to the point where he’d been in a number of fights. Fortunately for him, he’d fared well in the bare knuckle scraps he found himself involved in and although this discouraged others from tangling with him, it did nothing for his popularity. He seemed agitated, withdrawn and became a less frequent visitor to my classroom.
At first, I wasn’t sure why but I learned that he’d been involved in hunting practices I was incensed by. He knew I’d not only disapprove but I’d told him I’d get the police involved if I learned of any badger baiting or fox hunting. He admitted he had been involved in both at which point I reminded him of my warning. He tried arguing it was to help farmers from the spread of bovine TB and foxes from killing livestock but the delight I heard in his voice as he showed a few other lads a video of his exploits, told me otherwise.
But that wasn’t all. He’d gotten involved in dealing drugs, lured in by easy money on offer from older, cash rich dealers making large weekly sums that weren’t subject to tax or any other deductions. He would search for cannabis with the same thermal imaging technology he’d use for poaching, then collect a finders fee when others would go in and snatch the plants. The people he was rumoured to be associating with were not good people and the Robin Hood character he liked to make himself out to be just didn’t seem to ring true anymore.
I thought my conversations with Goldie were over but one morning he came and sat with me soon after arriving. He was less guarded and for once, he was very straight about what was going on. A few tears fell as he described how he was getting sucked into a life he knew wasn’t for him. At that moment he was very much a kid and a vulnerable one at that. We talked about the appalling badger baiting which he said he would stop.I wasn’t sure whether I believed him but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Soon after he was back to being Goldie again as he described the latest venture something that would put money in his pocket.
His solution to being skint – to start a business breeding and selling birds. He had the aviaries set up. ‘Piece of piss,’ he said, the bluster and bravado returning. I believed he would do it too though I wasn’t sure where he was getting the goldfinches, siskins and redpolls from and he wasn’t about to tell me.
Soon after, I left the school. I came to tell Goldie I was leaving and he shook my hand and wished me luck. The feeling was mutual. I suppose I wanted him to use that knowledge and resourcefulness to support the countryside. There are many entrepreneurs who make a good living out of the green economy. If Goldie could see the money in it, he might be one of them.
Most people I know either love the countryside like I do, or are indifferent to it. Goldie saw it as something else, a place of danger, a place to plunder, and a place to escape to. A place of power and control, where he was in charge, where no one told him what to do. The dogs followed his orders.
I like the idea of the countryside as a place of empowerment. Goldie was empowered by his skills as a hunter where many of us are empowered by simply navigating the winding paths that guide us through a wood or knowing which bushes produce billberries or that the yaffling coming from the trees is the call of a green woodpecker.
But people and places evolve over time and today’s poacher is tomorrow’s conservationist. Will that apply to Goldie? I’d like to think so, if the money is right.
