A few months ago, I was sitting in my London flat enjoying a relaxing evening, when the doorbell buzzed. Opening the door to deal with the unwelcome interruption, I was somewhat surprised by what I saw — my housemate stood there, brandishing a muntjac carcass. “Let’s get to work”, she said.
We both knew what we were doing, and made short work of the deer, but my initial amusement at such a scene taking place in central London was tempered by the very real fear that a nosy neighbour, glancing from a window, might be sent into a panic and report us to the police. More and more people have no experience of what happens to the meat they buy from supermarkets before it gets there. If I hadn’t grown up in the countryside, would I be one of that number?
To many, especially younger people, the idea of killing, bleeding, gutting, skinning and butchering an animal might seem disgusting. One man, however, is on a mission to educate the next generation about how meat gets from the field to their fork, in a raw, no-frills-attached manner.
Darren Sherwood, from Exmoor, has been a teacher for 22 years. His most recent post was in a special educational needs school, where he taught children with severe autism. Darren also happens to be a keen deerstalker and fly angler.
Like all those who take part in this pursuit, he recognises the ethical, environmental and health benefits of wild food and ethically reared livestock. As he puts it, “what’s better, a 64g chick that over five weeks swells to 2.2kg, or a partridge that has had a genuine free range existence and is then shot by someone who pays to do so, with that money going back into the rural economy and that high quality meat entering the food chain? As a deer manager I see deer going to the game dealer for pence per kilogram, or not even being shot as it’s not worth it. Everything I shoot goes into educating children, giving deer a value far greater than its monetary worth.”
His point is all the more relevant given the explosion in deer numbers — our current population of around two million is the largest it’s been since the Norman conquest. Defra has put the cost of deer damage to crops, plantations and commercial woodlands at £8.8m a year. 74,000 road accidents a year involve deer, killing ten to twenty people annually.
Over ten years ago, the BBC reported that at least 750,000 deer needed to be culled each year to keep populations under control. The numbers can only be higher now. That’s a lot of ethical, healthy, environmentally friendly (not to mention delicious) meat.
Some of Darren’s pupils have had diets that ranged little further than cheesy wotsits and bagels. What if he could introduce them to this healthier alternative? He’d be helping them, most importantly, but also the nation more largely. The UK’s obsession with unhealthy foods costs us £268bn a year, according to last year’s Food, Farming and Countryside Commission report.
All too often, game has sadly proven controversial. Darren doesn’t dress up the facts — he dresses deer. Not all his colleagues at schools have approved, branding him a “murderer”. Such outrage is no surprise. The Countryside Alliance has previously had to defend Scouts groups that have taught butchery of wild animals, after protests from animal rights activists who called it “Victorian”.
As a teacher, Darren knows that the way to expand people’s horizons is not drum-banging, it is through real experiences and engagement. One day he asked if he could bring in a buck he had shot, and butcher it with the children he taught (parental consent allowing). He was given the green light and did so. The children loved it.
From that first class, Darren has expanded on his idea. He has set up Exmoor Game School, a not-for-profit company, and has run 1100 classes for children in the past year, the majority at farms. Children get to skin, feather, and butcher animals, before cooking and eating the meat. Adult sessions subsidise the free classes for children. He’s done lessons across the South of England, from Devon to Hampshire.
Fifteen of this year’s have been at schools. For every one school that is keen for him to come, there are three that rebuff him. But Darren is undeterred, knowing the value of each session in spreading awareness and educating people. Vegetarians and vegans have taken part, and parents who were once horrified by the idea, crying “this is how serial killers start”, have been surprised when speaking to other parents whose children have enjoyed it, and have reconsidered their stance.
When confronted with the clean near-instant death, almost all agree that it is very much ethical
When questioned about how shooting a deer is ethical, Darren, with older students and only when appropriate to do so and with parental consent, offers to show footage of the deer that are about to be butchered. When confronted with the clean near-instant death, almost all agree that it is very much ethical.
It’s for a related reason that he runs most of his sessions on farms. “We can’t just have our cows and sheep roaming around the countryside — it wouldn’t work for a variety of reasons. But by running my classes at farms, it gives people the chance to see the livestock on the farm, how they are reared, and make their own minds up about the nature of ethically-reared livestock”, he says. “I’m not a gamekeeper, and I’m not a farmer. My company is not-for-profit. My only agenda here is as an educationalist.”
Maybe through Darren’s work, and that of others like him, we’ll one day end up in a time when butchering a muntjac in London won’t seem so unusual, and I’ll be able to do so in the garden, free from the fear of over-zealous neighbours.
