ALTHOUGH he comes from the mining town of Maltby in Yorkshire, La Fregate manager Chris Sharp had no intention of going down the pit for a living. His father worked for British Steel and many family members were involved in the industry.

‘I’m too tall to go down the mines,’ he said.

He was educated in Sheffield and did just enough work to get through his O-levels.

‘I was lazy, a dreamer who lacked attention and didn’t suffer fools gladly.

‘I did the bare minimum to get by and ended up with eight O-levels – the highest was in technical drawing.’

At 16 he landed a part-time job fixing tractors but there was no full-time position available and he ended up at catering college.

‘I knew nothing about hotels except for what I’d seen watching Crossroads, though I had a cousin who was a chef.’

He told the careers adviser he wanted to be a chef but landed up on a hotel management course.

‘I didn’t realise the difference. It was a lifestyle choice as opposed to being a career choice.’

He got on to a degree course in Blackpool, one of the two best centres in the country for studying hotel management at the time, though he was more interested in the town’s nightlife.

‘It was great. I was out every night on a penny a pint. It didn’t matter how much they watered it down, you could still get drunk for 30p.’

He left college without a job, though he admits that he was trying to delay entering the world of work.

Mr Sharp had been away from home for three years by that time and plotted his next move to ensure that continued.

‘The thought of going home didn’t appeal and I didn’t want to stay in the area because I’ve always felt the need to move around.’

He went to Hampshire to take up a trainee manager’s position.

‘I knew absolutely nothing. The difference between college and full-time employment was a world away.’

He spent the first six months in the kitchen.

‘But I realised that money and fame lay outside the kitchen which was too hot and too smelly.

‘I compared it with being down the pit.’

His first foray out of the kitchen was working behind a bar.

‘It was a surprise, especially as it was the day before New Year’s Eve and I had no staff.

‘I knew how to pull a pint but organising three bars with 300 people about to descend was interesting.’

It was sink or swim and he made sure he didn’t sink.

‘I have a sense of self-preservation, a drive that keeps my head above water.’

He also spent spells in the restaurant and on reception where he was also put in charge of conference sales.

‘They had no one else to do the job and they thought I had enough mouth to get by. They set me tasks which I did as quickly as I could and then spent the rest of the day on the beach.’

After 18 months Mr Sharp had a good grounding and needed a new challenge. His next position was at Rookery Hall in Cheshire, at that time one of the Egon Ronay guide’s top eight hotels.

‘It was something else as far as learning levels of service and the proper traditional way of doing things, but it didn’t make any money. One November we made a profit of £11 and celebrated by drinking a crate of Krug.’

It was at Rookery Hall that Mr Sharp realised the kind of hotel in which he wanted to work and develop his knowledge of the trade.

‘I knew I didn’t want to work in a bed factory. Forte and Swallow just wasn’t for me: I thought it was soulless and not what I was interested in.’

Rookery Hall went into receivership and became owned by Touche Ross. The company asked him to run the Howard Hotel in Edinburgh and he accepted the position of general manager.

‘I didn’t have a clue. Going from deputy manager to manager was very different.’

He had to take charge of 22 staff.

‘They were all hardened Scottish people who would slope off at lunchtime and the chefs were all crazy.’

It was another sink-or-swim moment.

‘You can’t do everything on luck and bravado. It was an experience and did me a great deal of good. Fortunately I swam.’

All too soon Mr Sharp’s short attention span got the better of him and it was time to move again. He went back to Cheshire, working for his former boss from Rookery Hall as front-of-house manager.

It was an impressive place, an 80-bedroomed hotel with a 750-metre driveway and boasting the world’s flattest lawn.

It was there that he realised money was to be made from bedrooms, not restaurants.

He describes his time there as crazy but fun, though he soon realised he needed some stability.

‘I left, got married, bought a house and changed career in the space of two weeks.’

Mr Sharp set up a direct mailing business for hotels.

It was totally different from what he had been doing before and did not hold his interest for long.

‘I would recommend to anyone in my business to do something outside and realise what it’s like. I thought everyone worked evenings and weekends and had no social life.

‘After two years I got rid of it. I found it far more tiring than coming in at 4pm and working till 3am. I was desperate to get back to what I did before but it was a really valuable insight.’

He took over The Swan, a 20-bedroomed coaching inn in Cheshire.

‘It was like going back to day one and was great because a lot of the lessons I learned could be put into practice.’

He was there two years before deciding he needed to work for a bigger firm. He took a job with Devere Hotels at the Daresbury Park Hotel which was undergoing a £23m. refurbishment.

‘I really enjoyed it but they worked on the premise that if you had 1,000 people in and got 10 complaints, so what? It was a very different way of working but a great learning curve.’

Mr Sharp then took a job with the five-star Lowry in Manchester owned by hotel giant Rocco Forte.

‘It was a building site and we had to set it up. We opened on time and on budget fortunately. It was the first five-star I had been involved in and it was a wonderful experience, but I could feel that big company mentality was a little inflexible for my management style.

‘It was quite restrictive and I’m not a big-group person.’

Fortunately he got the call asking if he would like to come to Guernsey to run La Fregate.

‘I didn’t even know where Guernsey was. I came in February four years ago on a blustery evening. I thought, great this is totally different and living by the sea is fantastic.’

Since he took over at La Fregate he has overseen another building project, the Orangerie, and the current bedroom refurbishment which is due to be completed before the end of the year.

‘I see extremely exciting times for the hotel. This is my fourth or fifth build project and it’s the most enjoyable.’

A man who until now had been unable to stay in one place longer than two years, Mr Sharp loves the island and the challenge of running La Fregate.

‘I suddenly realised what quality of life is all about.

‘Before it was a 24/7 type of life but Guernsey has allowed me to develop a life outside work, which has made me a better operator.’

Though the hotel trade and visitor market have dwindled over recent years, Mr Sharp is enthusiastic about Guernsey’s prospects.

‘It is such a change from the UK and I see huge business opportunities for the right market.’