Luke Woodend
Luke has nightmares about standing by a conveyor belt on an eight-hour night shift putting strawberries into yoghurts pots. “I’ve done that and believe me it is so monotonous and boring you just feel numb,” says a 22-year-old who readily admits that he wasted three years after leaving school in the summer of 2001.

 “But I don’t feel bored now and I’m certainly not wasting my time any more,” adds a young man from Dalton who is tickled pink – you could say strawberry pink! – to have graduated  in three years from being one of the Training Academy’s  apprentice chefs to become a much respected junior chef de partie at The Lakeside.

Having started on the same day as Tom Barnes, who recently moved on to The Vineyard in Newbury to work in the kitchens of their world famous restaurant, which carries two Michelin stars, Luke can reflect with pride on a route to Trinity House that was packed with disappointments and, thanks to his determination to fulfil his undoubted potential, has taken him to a point in his life where his culinary world can certainly be his oyster.

“Yes, you can say I’m proud of what I’ve achieved these last three years or so,” he says. “Duncan Collinge, who is our Executive Chef, stressed from day one that attitude was as important as ability. He said we could become whatever we wanted to become if we were really determined to give it our best shot. I like to think that Tom Barnes and myself took those words to heart – we both bless the day we started on the chef-apprentice scheme at the Training Academy.

“Two other youngsters started with us, but they lasted only three days before packing it in. I just got stuck in, gave it my best shot and before I knew it I was getting experience not only at Trinity House but also at The Lakeside, as well as going to Morecambe and Lancaster College three days a week to get my VRQ – Vocational Related Qualification - Level Two.”

By his own admission, Luke did not give two years at sixth-form college in Barrow his best shot after leaving school. “I came away with nothing and it was nobody’s fault but mine.  I was taking Art, English, GCSE maths and Media Studies, but Art was the only subject I was interested in and I just more or less skipped the other lessons,” he says.

“The teachers warned me that I was wasting my academic opportunity but they gave the pupils too much licence to please themselves, and the upshot was that after two years I had absolutely nothing to show for them in terms of qualifications. I regret it very much – my attitude was all wrong – and I know how lucky I am to have been given another chance to make something of my life.

“Apart from the yoghurt factory I also worked on a production line feeding cardboard in at one end and watching it come out as a box at the other. The only half-decent manual job I’ve had was at a supermarket in Ulverston filling up shelves with fruit and veg’.  At least that taught me one veg’ from another and it’s been useful in my new life, as I like to call it.

“The great thing about coming through the Training Academy is the help and support you get.  Right from day one, when you are preparing vegetables in the kitchen at Trinity, you are shown the right way to go about it.  And when you start cooking – breakfasts to start with before you move on to other stuff – you are told not to worry if you make a mistake.

“Your bad mistakes can stay in the kitchen and you are encouraged to have another go. All they ask is that you come in neat and tidily dressed, that you’re clean shaven and that you give it your best shot. The people training you, right from the top - and that’s Duncan Collinge – just want you to succeed and it’s a great feeling to know they are so genuinely supportive. It’s really surprising how quickly you move on from Trinity House to The Lakeside and just working in a four-star hotel as good as that is a real morale-booster.”

Luke’s “new life” has delighted his parents, who constantly urged him to look for a meaningful occupation and a grateful teenager says: “Being on the apprentice chef scheme made me feel good about myself from the start. When I was at the yoghurt and cardboard factories I just felt depressed and being on the dole was just as bad.

“I had no money to speak of, except what my Mum and Dad could afford to give me, and when I did go out at their expense I felt I didn’t deserve to be out because it was their money, not mine.  Now I’m being paid to pursue a good career, I have people who care about how I am doing and who want me to succeed.

“I feel so much better about myself, my self-respect and self-confidence are much better.  Believe me, it’s hard to put a price on that.”

Duncan Collinge is fulsome in his praise of how Luke has turned his life around. “He’s very gifted – he has what I call a great palate with a great feel for seasoning,” says Duncan. “Like Tom Barnes, he is one of our great successes, particularly when you consider what a difficult time he had in dead-end jobs after leaving school.

“To go from a raw beginner to cooking main courses in the Lakeview Restaurant at Lakeside in three years is no mean feat. Last year we sent him to work four shifts at L’enclune in Cartmel , a top class Michelin-starred restaurant and he loved the experience. Luke’s very interested in what goes into a particular dish, what gives it its taste and texture.

“As with Tom, I can’t speak too highly of what these youngsters have achieved. We give them all the help and support possible, always in the knowledge that they might well leave us to try pastures new. If that happens, as it has happened with Tom and may well happen with Luke one day, they move on with our blessing.

“We are proud of them, proud that they have come through our chef-apprentice scheme and done so well, so very well.”

Such words are music to Luke’s ears and he responds: “You can’t do it on your own and I will always be grateful to Duncan and everybody at Trinity and Lakeside who have given me so much support and encouragement right from the start. I would recommend our chef-apprentice scheme to anybody – the hours can be long but the more you cook and know that people have really enjoyed your food the better the job satisfaction.”

Luke’s hours are normally noon to 11pm for five days, then two days off. And he’s in good company at Lakeside – his girlfriend Alison Bickle works a ten-hour afternoon into late evening housekeeping shift.

“No wonder I’m happy,” smiles the ginger-haired chef from Dalton. “Both my personal and working lives are going along just great. That conveyor belt, the yoghurt pots and the strawberries, seem light years away.”