On leaving the Army, I went back into the hospitality industry where I had worked on and off part time from a young age.
In 2008 the opportunity arose to travel to East Africa, where I became General Manager of a Hotel and Diving resort on a small Island called Pemba in the middle of the Indian Ocean, where I worked and lived for 3 years.

It was there that I met Catherine, who at the time was working as a Diving instructor in Malta, but came to work in Pemba for the summer, and to collect her future husband!

On our return to England we settled into a small Pub in South East London that we operated for 5 or so years, making a lot of friends and doing a lot of cooking along the way. During our 12 years in business we tried to create the best possible food and service we could, learning and creating a great deal along the way.

Our final pub was a Juggernaut of a venue, set on the edge of Victoria Park in East London. Weddings and functions for 100-200 people, busy weekends with hundreds of covers everyday became normal, but after buying our house in Glenlivet in 2022, our hearts were always hundreds of miles away in a cottage in the Glenn where we now live.