rocked up near where Bournemouth College is today. As they parked the car, the gearstick came off in Dave’s friend’s hand. “He looked down at the stick in his hand,” said Dave, “then he looked up at us and said, ‘there’s no going back now boys.’” It must have been fate. Except for a three-year sojourn in Jersey where he received his advanced cookery qualification, Dave has lived and taught in Bournemouth ever since. He started working as a lecturer at Bournemouth College in 1980.
In 1987 he became a member of the recently created Academy of Culinary Arts. Two years later, alongside fellow Academy member Peter Taylor, Dave set up the first Specialised Chefs Course at Bournemouth College. The idea was to give young, inexperienced chefs working in London’s big hotels, a greater support system. “We were losing a lot of 18 to 20 year olds from the industry,” said Dave, “so we set about addressing the problem. The idea was that we would have a team of people there behind the scenes to help and support them through the difficult period from college to work.”
The Specialised Chefs course has been going strong ever since. John Williams calls it “the finest apprenticeship in the country”. It is the ACA’s official apprenticeship scheme with chefs taken on as under-19 year olds and placed in top catering institutions like The Ritz, Claridges, The Savoy, Buckingham Palace and The Dorchester. Trainees spend 9 months of the three-year course in college and two full years in their chosen establishments where they are constantly monitored and supported. It’s also the only course in the country where the students are paid a weekly wage by their establishments, even during the periods when they are at college. Hywel Jones, Michelin-starred executive chef at Lucknam Park, is one of the chefs who has been taking Dave’s students for many years.
He said: “What amazes me is that when they first come to me, they’ve only been at Bournemouth three months but during that time his input must be massive to turn them into the well turned out, polite, disciplined young people that arrive here, and they’ve all got so much respect for Dave.” The respect that Dave commands is a recurring theme from all the people who talk about him. The words’ father figure’ are also often mentioned. Both Hywel Jones and Brian Turner speak about the presents that Specialised Chefs graduates club together to buy him. The gift from last year’s graduates gives some idea what they think of him. It was a meal at Koffman’s at The Berkeley and a night at Claridges. A great teacher, chef and person, that is the impression you get of Dave from everyone you speak to, but what summed him up for me more than anything – apart from the modest office – was the reason he gave for turning down the position of Royal Chef. “I would have had to move up to London,” said Dave, “and my children were of an age where I didn’t think that would be a good thing. Also you had to be away six weeks of the year at Sandringham and six weeks at Balmorel and I didn’t want to be away from my family that long.”
