Man of the people

Above: Nigel Wheeler

Above: Nigel Wheeler

Ask most men to don tights, white gloves and a pair of velvet breeches, then show up in public wearing the whole ensemble, and you wouldn’t see them for dust. Then ask them to follow one of the most charismatic High Sheriffs Kent has seen – the unstoppable and utterly gorgeous, Amanda Cottrell – well, would you accept the role?
Nigel Wheeler, 57, has. And what’s more, he was looking forward to the challenge when we met at the family farm in East Peckham.
He’s also enough of a thespian to carry off the traditional ‘ceremonials’ with style. I glimpsed the whole ensemble (sword and all) before his official installation ceremony.

Local roots
Born in a nursing home in Tonbridge, Nigel went to school at Hilden Oaks in the town of his birth and then boarded at a couple of independent schools in Hastings.
His family originally came over to Kent from West Sussex in the 1840s and grew hops – something the Wheelers have done since the 16th century. They put down strong local roots (Nigel’s great-grandfather was a JP and chairman of the bench in Tonbridge and Malling in the 1920s).
The land is still farmed today, by Nigel’s older brother and father, now 88. “In fact,” he reflects, “my cousins, uncles, brother, father all farm, except me. I was the youngest son and there were no more acres left, so they said, ‘go and join the army, the church or teach’. I couldn’t face the other two, so I thought let’s go and teach.”
I ask if he has ever regretted not following in his brother’s footsteps, and he smiles: “Have you seen a happy farmer lately? I still take an interest, but my brother just says, ‘shut up brat, you don’t know what you’re talking about’. I’m still the brat. I’m sure they got us mixed up and he should have been High Sheriff!

I haven’t come from the hierarchy of Kent – I’ve come from the yeoman stock

“We still grow hops, also apples and pears, and some corn, but are using many of the farm buildings for different means.”
And so it was that the young Nigel went away to university in the sixties to read English and, along the way, indulge in a bit of “bad acting, and rather more successful directing”. Following his teaching diploma, he went straight to an appointment at Eastbourne College, where he was to remain for the next 30 years, as both a housemaster and English teacher.
“It was a friendly school, where I had three superb heads to work with,” he tells me, when I express surprise at how long he spent there. “I wasn’t really ambitious enough to go for a headship, and I’m not really an educationalist. Teaching is something to do between the long holidays.”
One of Nigel’s abiding passions began when he was just a schoolboy, at East Lancing College, where he started his own cricket team, The Scorpions, with a mate from Ghana. They still play as a team, not so much these days (“both shoulders have gone,” he tells me, as we compare osteopathic tales), “but we do go on nice tours.”
Nigel also ran the school cricket team for 30 years at Eastbourne, and had great fun going on rather nice tours then, too; the first big one being to his beloved New Zealand, where he has family and which he still visits.
This particular trip not only involved the cricket team, but also the debating team, and the drama society, who were staging A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Real Inspector Hound.

A magical time
“Everyone was in Dream, so the King of the Fairies would have to change out of his cricket kit and get on stage. We took our own instruments, costumes and masks, for a month. It was a magical time,” he reflects.
Nigel finally stopped teaching last summer, having gone part-time in 1998, which enabled him to become more involved in the family farm as well as rediscover Kent.
I ask if he had had to think about accepting the role of High Sheriff, which carries quite a strain on the purse strings. “I had got to the situation, having been at a school for many years, of enjoying it but knowing there had to be an end,” he admits.
“I was getting older, and only working three days a week, so I needed a new challenge. I thought this was a marvellous opportunity.”
He adds: “I’m an interesting choice, because I haven’t come from a line of De L’Isles and the hierarchy of Kent – I’ve come from the yeoman stock. And I’m not one of the ‘old brigade’ who’ve given a lot to the county already. I haven’t started giving to the county, so it starts now.”
So what’s it going to be like following in the footsteps of the indefatigable Amanda Cottrell? He chuckles: “Amanda has done more than 700 appointments in her year, so I think I’ve been sent in to slow it down a bit!
“I always used to say to my headteacher, when there was a panic, take a deep breath and slow down.”
As with all High Sheriffs, Nigel will want to put his support behind a number of specific causes, and one of his principal interests is children’s sport. Despite describing himself as a “not very good batsman” - undoubtedly with typically British understatement - his passion for the game is huge, and, as well as continuing with The Scorpions, he is a member of Kent cricket club, The Band of Brothers, and also Kent County Cricket Club. He has also turned out for Tonbridge side the Yellowhammers for many years and still plays fives and racquetball – to his own rules – as well as “very bad golf.”

My big slogan for the year is: a kid in sport keeps out of court

“I’m interested in people who give time to kids’ sport and my big slogan for the year is, ‘a kid in sport keeps out of court’,” he enthuses. “The county does it very well, but it’s a continual project to encourage children to appreciate and enjoy what so many of us took for granted in our youth.”
He adds: “My main worry is not appearing as patronizing. I want to be perceived as being genuinely interested when I meet different groups of people and organisations.
“Someone told me, you’ll be most useful where you feel most comfortable. Good advice” Having been a magistrate for 11 years, Nigel is also interested in the probation service, and he is looking forward to spending time with the voluntary bodies in Kent and acknowledging the role they play: “It’s one of the most important jobs for the High Sheriff to do,” he tells me.

Memories
The latter interest is fuelled by memories of his mother, Joan, who worked tirelessly for the Tonbridge and Malling WRVS, and he is delighted that the installing ceremony [held on 1 April] would be taking place at his local church, Holy Trinity, where both his mother and sister are buried and the church clock, newly electrified, is dedicated to Joan.
Was he looking forward to the ceremony? “I think it will be a most interesting occasion for my mates from far afield to attend,” he says. “I think the village will be inquisitive, but they don’t know me very well yet, because I haven’t had kids attending the local school or anything like that.
“But the village priest is terribly excited, and the local silver band will blare forth. There’ll be 70-plus for lunch in a marquee, then another 100 or so for the church service, so it will be quite frantic and chaotic, but very jolly.
“You also get to appoint a chaplain, and mine is a marvellous old army officer, the Reverend Clifford Comnys, a gloriously funny septuagenarian Irishman of great wit, and a great friend of mine. He’s gone on lots of overseas school cricket tours with me.”
How about other interests, I ask, will there be time to pursue his love of the arts still? There certainly will: he was off to catch a train to London to see The Man of Mode after our chat, had enjoyed The Seagull the previous week and we indulge in a pleasant half- hour discussion of Stratford seasons past and present, Lear emerging as top of both our must-sees this season.
Nigel is also patron of the Royal Tunbridge Wells International Music Festival and is looking forward to lending them his support. “I love a good sing-a-long in the bath and I have spent many happy hours in choral groups, but alas, I have absolutely no instrumental acumen,” he cheerfully admits.
And in pursuit of his growing knowledge of the Garden of England, Nigel will not only continue to pop his bike in the back off his jeep and head off to destinations such as Sandwich and Deal, but in the year of the Tour de France, he will also be encouraging more children to get cycling.
He adds: “I’m very interested in Produced in Kent and keen to visit the local Farmers’ Markets. I’m not a great one for eating out much, I prefer a good local pub, and I enjoy a good pint of Kentish ale.”
So, at the start of what will be a whirlwind year, how is Nigel viewing the next 12 months? “All previous High Sheriffs have given a lot to the county and I haven’t started, but now I can,” he says.
“I haven’t got any preconceived ideas about people, nor an agenda. It’s a blank page, and that’s lovely. It’ll be splendid chaos.
“Maybe I’ll even get around to finding a wife!”