Megan Henderson - Novar Estate

Megan Henderson is just where she wants to be. Thanks to her mother, a great college tutor and an open-minded head keeper who believed that a teenage girl could become good gamekeeper…

Shooting to success

Megan believes that gamekeeper training today opens doors for ‘outsiders’ who can work alongside those who learn by generation, from parents and grandparents.

 

Today Megan is Under Keeper on the Novar Estate at Evanton in Scotland - 23,000 acres dedicated to farming, forestry, traditional country sports and taking care of the environment.

Within five years she has proved the doubters, and there have been many, wrong. Not only is Megan qualified and experienced, last year her success was sealed when she won our Scottish Land-based Learner of the Year Awards.

“I was surprised because I didn’t think I would win, but the award was proof. That’s the biggest highlight of my career so far, because I could be proud of it, I could say ‘I worked hard for this’, it’s confirmation that I CAN do the job!”

Megan was presented with the outstanding achievement award, sponsored by G C Taylor (Farms) Ltd, by Rural Affairs Cabinet Secretary Richard Lochhead, who said all the winners were leading a new generation of young people in the land based industries in Scotland.

For Megan, it was a personal as well as a professional triumph, and a tribute to those who believed in her ambitions - her mother Caroline, North Highland College tutor John Waters (now retired), and her first Head Keeper, Bill Whyte, on the Gruinard Estate near Gairloch, where Mrs Henderson has been housekeeper for more than a decade.

Just a couple of months into her new role as Under Keeper to Sam Milne on the Novar Estate, home to the first wind farm in the Highlands and backdrop to a scene in the movie Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, Megan would love to see more females join her in gamekeeping.

“You just have to work hard and give as good as you get,” she grins.

Megan was inspired by her mother’s farming family background to go into the job and Bill Whyte let her work on the Gruinard Estate for two seasons before she took a National Certificate in Gamekeeping, then an HNC in Gamekeeping and Wildlife Management.

“We spent most of the time on placement at the estate so you learn by doing, which is best,” she says. “It helped me having experience before I went to college and I would advise anyone to complete the full two years.”

Megan has always brushed aside doubts about her ability to do the job: “The careers advisor at school said I should got into veterinary medicine instead. Sometimes clients obviously wonder about a ‘girl’ dragging a 16-stone stag for them, and offer to help. But they all come round when they see I can do it all OK,” she explains.

Megan believes that gamekeeper training today opens doors for ‘outsiders’ who can work alongside those who learn by generation, from parents and grandparents.

“These days you need the qualifications, the paperwork, health and safety certificates, and that helps the Estate with a highly trained workforce. The one thing missing from the college course is fishing - estates often want water ghillies and it’s hardly covered.”

She is enjoying her job and learning about game birds. Megan did consider taking further training in land management, but didn’t want to get trapped into an office job.

At Novar, she enjoys the variety and being outdoors: “Here everyone mucks in. You work with the birds, the deer, a bit of farming. Managing game, we definitely put more into the estate than we take out.”

Her advice to aspiring gamekeepers, whatever their gender, is to get practical experience, stay the course at college, learn to drive everything from tractors to dumpers, get to grips with guns and stay very fit.

“As a female it’s also about creating good working relationships, which sometimes means giving as good as you get because the lads will tease you.”

“But if you work hard you can do anything. Especially with people behind you like Bill Whyte, who said ‘We’ll see if you can hack it’, and John Waters who had faith in me. And of course my mother, who never doubted me and encourage me all the way. She has been a rock.”