Food for me goes back as far as I can remember – as I have already mentioned I was raised on a small farm where we had fresh milk from the cows every morning – fresh vegetables from the field – and sometimes home-produced meat as well. Very very lucky to have gone through this.

My grandfather had also been the milkman, butcher, and slaughter man for the village in days gone by.

My mum was an excellent cook and we always had good food on the table – never hungry – I used to help my mum make proper Cornish pasties – cakes – puddings etc.

When I was 13 and at boarding school, I was one of the first male students in my school to opt in to do cookery/home economics, this caused a huge amount of micky taking, luckily the toughest guy in school also chose it, so we stuck together – total of 3 boys mixed with 27 girls – bonus – LOL.

Cookery had benefits at boarding school – extra food that could be sold for profit – heeee heee – or eaten if hungry.

It was at this point of my life, that I chose catering as my career – you will read about the rest of my journey a little further on.

My dad, knowing I wanted to get into catering decided I should work in the local pub to see if I could stick it – I loved it and learnt loads from my first chef, while I was washing the pots and pans as the kitchen porter (KP).

Cooking was my goal – I wanted to emulate my hero of the day Graham Kerr from the TV – however this was doomed to failure when I left school – I started in my first professional kitchen as previously mentioned – within one week the head chef said to me – “Olds get out of my kitchen, you will never be a chef” – my dream was shattered! I let someone take my dream away from me! I should have chased it elsewhere! But you can’t change your past!

However, the company offered me a job as a commis waiter which I accepted, and the rest is history as you will read.

Food remained a passion but now it was about its service and the art of getting the great food in front of the customer. Love it!!

My career started to blossom, and I found people in my life that I wanted to impress again – by age 19 I was the youngest ever head waiter in the company, quite a feat as there were 29 hotels with over 40 restaurants between them. Including some very prestigious names – Gleneagles, St Andrews Old Course & Turnberry (Now part of Trump land)

Four years I worked for this publicly owned company, until it was sold off by Thatcher’s Government and went downhill fast as the company was torn apart – I then started a long list of jumping around throughout the private sector with many manager roles in hotels, bars, clubs and restaurants – culminating in owning my own Pub/Restaurant in Huntingdonshire, which I sold in 2004 – I sold it because it was killing me – long hours and the dreaded alcohol. The dream had become a nightmare.

You see, over my long career in catering I managed to lose several jobs and a business due to the dreaded booze. I had let it capture me into the dream that it was helping me achieve my goals – in real terms it was doing exactly the opposite, as it had done through my whole career. Culminating with my final departure from a full-time role in the hospitality trade in September 2016 – from there I tried various contracts in a plethora of industries as well as working a few self-employed businesses.

I then found a role that suited me hours wise and mentality wise, in the social housing profession. Of course! Perfectly logical career move age 53/54 – LOL

I have been with the company since 2017 and have completed my second qualification in housing through the CIH – it is awesome.

So where did John’s Block come from? – this came about through many friends, who over the years said I should write a cook book or teach cooking/life skills – you see amongst all the downs of my career due to booze I had a bloody good life, with loads of home entertaining and had taught myself to cook by watching some of the best chefs in the world from the other side of the hot plate – although I have no formal training, I love food, eating out and cooking at home. John’s Block started in January 2020 and the first video went live in April of the same year.

Dreams and aspirations for the future are that my career in social housing carries on as well as it started, and that John’s Block goes from strength to strength helping as many people as possible as I learn yet another new trade, ie filming and social media – happy days😊

My updated view on Health and wellbeing is that it should be vitally important to us all? Sadly, this is not the case!

I spent the first 16 years of my life been extremely fit, playing sports at school, cycling, and working on my dad’s farm.

Then I discovered, beer!

Followed shortly by sex!

Put the two together inside night clubs, pubs, hotels and restaurants without the discipline of school and 40 years later without the exercise, and my body was totally knackered. I lost control of my health. I was too busy – so called living a normal life!

My weight had shot up to 15 stone at one point, for someone of only 5ft 8in that is a lot.

Ideal weight around 11 – 12 stone.

So! What changed?

I had from around the age of 30 started to read again, having said when I left school that I would never read another book – I started reading books on all sorts of subject matter about the human body, mind, and general wellbeing. I started to think about the contents – it would however take a further 25 years for me to realise that I was not perfect or indestructible and that the contents of these books were not just interesting to read about, but actually applied to me as I was in fact a human being. LOL

Age 55 ish I realised that I needed to change some things in my life – I started to re-read the books again that I started age 30ish and to apply some of the principles – I now exercised daily except Sundays – I read positive stuff for the mind to keep me motivated and started to look at what I ate – John’s Block was partly conceived off the back of my journey in life and a desire to share my experiences.

Thinking about it, I had spent over 30 years working with and consuming alcohol within the hospitality industry, helping people enjoy themselves, encouraging them to eat and drink more (me included) – so when it came to a change in my lifestyle this was a tough nut to crack.

I had not realised that I had been drinking heavily for over 40 years, no thought of changing my habits or lifestyle had occurred to me in any serious form, until one night I woke up in extreme pain around my tummy, it was so bad I called 999 and they sent out the paramedics (great people) straight away. I was rushed into A&E and then admitted – it turned out that I had two issues – a hernia and a perforated gallbladder – both needed to be operated on – so it was agreed that the doctor would perform both procedures at the same time by keyhole surgery.

During my consultation I was asked many times how much I drank and was asked to recall and write down a normal week’s intake – this turned out to be so scary. I had been consuming over 100 units of alcohol weekly for as long as I could remember (UK Gov now recommend 14 units for men and women) so I was hitting 7+ times more than the recommended levels. They advised me that this was not good and needed to be addressed. I agreed☹

Why am I sharing all these personal details with you?

Simple – if someone like me can start to turn their habits and lifestyle around at age 56, surely, there is hope for you, if you find yourself in a similar state of affairs?

Or you could be reading it, thinking – no way am I going to go down that road I need to change some things in my life. NOW!!

Wherever you are in your journey of life, you have choices to make – John’s Block will share experiences and ideas around a healthy lifestyle – (we do not give advice) – choices are what you as an individual have to make, if you need help and advice around those choices please seek professional help from your GP.

I would like to close by saying a huge thank you to everyone that has helped me throughout my career to date and those that will help me in the future – finally work wise a word to all the people I have let down over the years and have had to move me on for their own protection – Thank you.

However, the very last words must be of thanks to my gorgeous wife & life partner Jane, and also my beautiful daughter Penny – these guys have been my rocks and my purpose throughout the main part of my journey, highs and lows.  Cheers guys – Love You.

So now you know a bit about me and how I got here – come join me at John’s Block on the start of your new journey and our next adventure.

Food for me goes back as far as I can remember – as I have already mentioned I was raised on a small farm where we had fresh milk from the cows every morning – fresh vegetables from the fields all year round – and sometimes home-produced beef as well. Very very lucky to have gone through this.

My grandfather had also been the milkman, butcher, and slaughter man for the village in days gone by.

My mum was an excellent cook and we always had good food on the table – never hungry – I used to help my mum make proper Cornish pasties – cakes – puddings etc.

When I was 13 and at boarding school, I was one of the first male students in my school to opt in to do cookery/home economics, this caused a huge amount of micky taking, luckily the toughest guy in school also chose it, so we stuck together – total of 3 boys mixed with 27 girls – bonus – LOL.

Cookery had benefits at boarding school – extra food that could be sold for profit – heeee heee – or eaten if hungry.

It was at this point of my life, that I chose catering as my career – you will read about the rest of my journey a little further on.

My dad, knowing I wanted to get into catering decided I should work in the local pub to see if I could stick it – I loved it and learnt loads from my first chef, while I was washing the pots and pans as the kitchen porter (KP).

Cooking was my goal – I wanted to emulate my hero of the day Graham Kerr from the TV – however this was doomed to failure when I left school – I started in my first professional kitchen as previously mentioned – within one week the head chef said to me – “Olds get out of my kitchen, you will never be a chef” – my dream was shattered! I let someone take my dream away from me! I should have chased it elsewhere! But you can’t change your past!

However, the company offered me a job as a commis waiter which I accepted, and the rest is history as you will read.

Food remained a passion, but now it was about its service and the art of getting the great food in front of the customer. Love it!!

My career started to blossom, and I found people in my life that I wanted to impress again – by age 19 I was the youngest ever head waiter in the company (BTH), quite a feat as there were 29 hotels with over 40 restaurants between them. Including some very prestigious names – Gleneagles, St Andrews Old Course & Turnberry (Now part of Trump land)

Four years I worked for this publicly owned company, until it was sold off by Thatcher’s Government and went downhill fast as the company was torn apart – I then started a long list of jumping around throughout the private sector with many manager roles in hotels, bars, clubs and restaurants – culminating in owning my own Pub/Restaurant in Huntingdonshire, which I sold in 2004 – I sold it because it was killing me – long hours and the dreaded alcohol. The dream had become a nightmare.

You see, over my long career in catering I managed to lose several jobs and a business due to the dreaded booze. I had let it capture me into the dream that it was helping me achieve my goals – in real terms it was doing exactly the opposite, as it had done through my whole career. Culminating with my final departure from a full-time role in the hospitality trade in September 2016 – from there I tried various contracts in a plethora of industries as well as working a few self-employed businesses.

I then found a role that suited me hours wise and mentality wise, in the social housing profession. Of course! Perfectly logical career move age 53/54 – LOL

So where did John’s Block come from? – this came about through friends and family, who over the years said I should write a cook book or teach cooking/life skills – you see amongst all the downs of my career due to booze I had a bloody good life, with loads of home entertaining and had taught myself to cook by watching some of the best chefs in the world from the other side of the hot plate – although I have no formal training, I love food, eating out and cooking at home. John’s Block started in January 2020 and the first video went live in April of the same year.

Dreams and aspirations for the future are that John’s Block develops into a coaching business that helps people with Food, Service & Whole of Life and goes from strength to strength helping as many people as possible as I learn yet another new trade, ie coaching, filming and social media – happy days😊

My updated view on Health and wellbeing is that it should be vitally important to us all? Sadly, this is not the case!

I spent the first 17 years of my life been extremely fit, playing sports at school, cycling, and working on my dad’s farm.

Then I discovered, beer!

Followed shortly by sex!

Put the two together inside night clubs, pubs, hotels and restaurants without the discipline of school and 40 years later without the exercise, and my body was totally knackered. I lost control of my health. I was too busy – so called living a normal life!

My weight had shot up to 15 stone at one point, for someone of only 5ft 8in that is a lot.

Ideal weight around 12 stone.

So! What changed?

From around the age of 30 I started to read again, having said when I left school that I would never read another book – I started reading books on all sorts of subject matter about the human body, mind, and general wellbeing. I started to think about the contents – it would however take a further 25 years for me to realise that I was not perfect or indestructible and that the contents of these books were not just interesting to read about, but actually applied to me as I was in fact a human being. LOL

So in my mid 50’s I realised that I needed to change some things in my life – I started to re-read the books again that I started age 30ish and to apply some of the principles – I now exercised daily except Sundays – I read positive stuff for the mind to keep me motivated and started to look at what I ate – John’s Block was partly conceived off the back of my journey in life and a desire to share my experiences. The Block is our kitchen block that many conversation have been had around, both laughter and tears!

Thinking about it, I had spent over 30 years working with and consuming alcohol within the hospitality industry, helping people enjoy themselves, encouraging them to eat and drink more (me included) – so when it came to a change in my lifestyle this was a tough nut to crack.

I had not realised that I had been drinking heavily for over 40 years, no thought of changing my habits or lifestyle had occurred to me in any serious form, until one night I woke up in extreme pain around my tummy, it was so bad I called 999 and they sent out the paramedics (great people) straight away. I was rushed into A&E and then admitted – it turned out that I had two issues – a hernia and a perforated gallbladder – both needed to be operated on – so it was agreed that the doctor would perform both procedures at the same time by keyhole surgery.

During my consultation I was asked many times how much I drank and was asked to recall and write down a normal week’s intake – this turned out to be so scary. I had been consuming over 100 units of alcohol weekly for as long as I could remember (UK Gov now recommend 14 units for men and women) so I was hitting 7+ times more than the recommended levels. They advised me that this was not good and needed to be addressed. I agreed☹

Why am I sharing all these personal details with you?

Simple – if someone like me can start to turn their habits and lifestyle around at age 56, surely, there is hope for you, if you find yourself in a similar state of affairs?

Or you could be reading this, thinking – no way am I going to go down that road,  I need to change some things in my life. NOW!!

Wherever you are in your journey of life, you have choices to make – John’s Block will share experiences and ideas around a healthy lifestyle – (we do not give advice, we help you discover) – choices are what you as an individual have to make, if you need help and advice around those choices please seek professional help from your GP.

I would like to close by saying a huge thank you to everyone that has helped me throughout my career to date and those that will help me in the future – finally work wise a word to all the people I have let down over the years, and that have had to move me on for their own protection – Thank you.

However, the very last words must be of thanks to my gorgeous wife & life partner Jane, and also my beautiful daughter Penny – these guys have been my rocks and my purpose throughout the main part of my journey, highs and lows.  Cheers guys – Love You.

So now you know a bit about me and how I got here – come join me at John’s Block on the start of your new journey and our next adventure.