Tom Barnes

Tom was 15 and still at school when he answered a local newspaper advert’ asking for Saturday boys or girls to work at Trinity House preparing food. “I knew immediately that it was a job I wanted and when I got it I also knew that it could be my first stepping-stone to becoming a chef,” says a teenager who, three years on, landed a post in the kitchens of one of Britain’s finest restaurants.  

Three months short of his 19th birthday this ambitious youngster from Askam, near Barrow, said goodbye to the Lakeside Hotel, where he had been such an outstanding apprentice and junior chef de partie, and started work at The Vineyard in Newbury, Berkshire – a highly-rated hotel with a restaurant carrying two Michelin stars.

So far so good, so very good, for a young man with the drive and determination to go right to the top. But however far up the culinary ladder he climbs Tom will never forget the guidance and support he received from Lakeside’s Executive Chef Duncan Collinge “and everybody else connected with my first three years after I started peeling potatoes and preparing veg’ at Trinity House and Lakeside. Everybody – and I do mean everybody – was so kind and helpful and I am so grateful to them all,” says a teenager who hated formal education with a passion.

This from a clear-thinking youngster whose Mum Irene is a teacher! But she and Tom’s father Alan, a boilermaker, wholeheartedly support their son’s burning ambition to make a living from cooking and were delighted when he was offered one of Trinity’s chef apprentice places. Now they are even more proud of a son who, in Duncan Collinge’s assessment, is destined to make them even prouder.

“I never had a single doubt that Tom would make the grade. Without any prompting he does things to enhance his knowledge and prospects. For instance, all his spare money goes on buying cookery books and specialist knives and he likes to visit good quality restaurants to see how they cook and serve,” says Duncan.

“Now he’s working in one of the very best restaurants in Britain and, sorry as we were to lose him, we wish him all the very best. He was as keen as mustard to do well from his very first shift as a Saturday boy and it’s absolutely terrific that he is fulfilling all the great potential I could see in him from the start. It was a pleasure to see him blossom at Lakeside and you can be quite sure that we will be watching his progress with great interest."

A chef’s life invariably involves unsocial hours, “If you’re involved in cooking somebody’s evening meal it’s obvious that you’ve got to be there in the evening,” Tom smiles.

“I never liked school and was very pleased to leave, especially because I knew I was going on the chef-apprentice course at Trinity House. One day a week at college was ok because I knew that getting a National Vocational Qualification, Level Two, was a necessary part of becoming a fully qualified chef.

“I can honestly say that, right from the start, there was nothing about this job I didn’t like – nothing at all. It’s been everything I thought it would be, and more. The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was when I became a Saturday boy at Trinity House, which led to me becoming an apprentice chef.

“Whatever happens in the future – and my real ambition is to work abroad, possibly in California – I’ll never forget where I started and how much help I was given right from day one.”