Career pans out for cookery teacher

Chris Lord will teach cookery and run an on-site restaurant at Waltheof Park Academy, after three years as food technology and catering tutor at Hayfield School in Auckley, Doncaster. Chris - who has also written his own cookery book, ‘Cooking for University’, a guide for freshers starting out on their own - overcame tremendous personal difficulties to become a teacher. When he just 21 and in his final year studying food marketing and management at Sheffield Hallam University he learnt he might lose his sight due to a rare eye condition known as Laders Optic Neuropathy. The condition is genetic and 99 per cent of people who fall prey to it are male, although genetically it is passed through the female bloodline. Only around one person in 150,000 suffers the disease. “Luckily my sight was saved to a degree,” said Chris, now 27. “I can see up to about a foot in front of me but any further away and I’m more or less unable to see. “It was completely unexpected - I had no real warning whatsoever. I found out it was going to happen about six months before finishing my university course and it was devastating news. “However it could have been worse - at first the doctors thought it might be a brain tumour, so I suppose under the circumstances I was lucky.” Chris refused to let the condition beat him and, instead, he says it helped to shape his future. “Because of the problems with my sight I went into teaching and that’s proved to be a great decision. I guess if it hadn’t happened I might never have tried teaching out and, as I love the job, that would have been a real shame. “Given that I can see close up I’m perfectly able to perform the job, and working with youngsters is a real pleasure.”