Former chef with incredible CV takes on new care role at Pendine

A FORMER chef whose career has taken him from Michelin-starred Dorchester Hotel to Doha international airport has landed a job at a top care organisation.

Along the way Dale Hall has cooked for scientists in the Antarctic, been blown up by a mortar shell in Iraq and worked in logistics at a military base in Afghanistan.

The 62-year-old has a CV which also includes time spent in places from Aruba and Azerbaijan to Peru and Venezuela is now overseeing maintenance, housekeeping, catering and safety for Pendine Park who have eight homes in Wrexham and Caernarfon.

Dale, pictured inset, who now lives in Holywell, said:

“I’ve been very lucky because I’ve been able to travel and work so extensively throughout the world, pretty much everywhere except Europe really.

“But I’m really happy now after Pendine Park saw my CV on line and interviewed me. It seems a perfect fit for me after years of working around the world.

“The team spirit and the sense of being one big family here just seemed like something I would really

like to be a part of.”

Dale, who went to Prestatyn High School, originally trained as a chef at the former Kelsterton College in Flintshire and Llandrillo College, Rhos on Sea, before heading to London to work at the Hilton and the Dorchester.

He said: “It didn’t suit me there though and after coming home I took a job with the British Antarctic Survey and spent three years in the Antarctic as chef for the survey team through winters when the

wind chill would drive temperatures to -100C.”

On his return he moved into catering operations and then into logistics and facilities management which took him to Iraq with the job of renovating one of Saddam Hussein’s airports.

His expertise in logistics has seen him spend four years in Afghanistan - a safer posting than Iraq, he says - as well as Hong Kong and the Far East, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Peru and Venezuela and the Shetland Islands.