A venture into volunteering

Starting at the beginning, where did you grow up?

I was born in the UK and but emigrated to South Africa when I was two and a half, I was obviously very little, so I don’t remember that part of my life all that well. I had a lovely childhood in South Africa but moved back to the UK in 2002.I’ve been over here 20 years but am always travelling backwards and forwards, and my mum recently joined me and moved back to the UK.

What were your first jobs like in the UK?

When I first moved over to the UK, like all South Africans, Australians, and Kiwis, I did bar work, restaurant work, hotel work for about three or four years, but it gets to the point where you know you can’t face the late-night finishes. I would finish work and have a couple of hours sleep, then go and start it all over again with the breakfast shift. So eventually you have to say ‘goodbye’ and look for something new!