The Commission Files
Journalist and broadcaster Will Leitch brings you regular Christian faith stories and meets the people making a difference in society. Produced by Commission Christian Radio
The Commission Files
"Yes Chef..."
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Chef Stephen Jeffers has cooked for celebrities, VIPs and Royalty. As the boss of the successful Forestside Cookery School, he's a well-known contributor to Northern Ireland's' food scene. As a restaurateur he knew business success, where everything he touched was a triumph. He also knew crushing disappointment and eventually saw everything he'd built-up, melt away. Yet in telling Will his remarkable story, he attributes everything good and positive in his life to God. When Stephen cried out for help, it was Jesus Christ who answered, "Yes, Chef..."
Produced by Commission Christian Radio
Hello, I'm Will Leach, back with the Commission Files from Commission Christian Radio. I'm always after a story or two, and boy, have we won for you this time. My guest is the chef, Stephen Jeffers, proprietor and chef at the Forest Side Cookery School in South Belfast. But also former restauranteur many times over, a man who used to cook for celebrities and VIPs, but also a talented musician, a vocalist, a trumpet player, and a man, well, with a few other stories to tell. Anyway, Stephen, chef, welcome to the Commission Files. I've been in your world in your kitchen. My word you ordered us about was great good humour. Now you're in my world. Welcome to the studio. It's great to be here. Well, thank you. Tell us about Forest Side Cookery School.
SPEAKER_07What do you do there? Well, we're uh we're a unit actually within uh Forestside Shopping Centre, which people think, oh, strange having a cookery school in the shopping centre. But uh the opportunity came up and me being me, I thought, let's have a look and see well, let's work. So that's what we do. We've been there ten years now. We have a unit above Sainsbury's, you head up in a little lift there, it kind of feels like your own private lift. It's not, but it works that way. And we have 20 uh stations there, which we're for for 20 people. And on a weekly basis, probably three to four times a week, I teach people different cuisines and uh stuff like French, maybe Irish breads, some Vietnamese classes, and it changes throughout the week. I'm just giving a bit of back what I've learned over the years. Do you have to be an expert? Absolutely not. We won't we actually don't want anybody who thinks they're an expert. They're the worst type because that doesn't work. Uh so we we want people very king cooks, amateur cooks, people who've never cooked in their life, people who want to buy somebody a lovely present for their birthday, their anniversary. That's the type of thing. And we take it with a bit of fun, but it's also a serious bit of cooking where you end up learning terrific skills and sit down at the table and enjoy each other's company and have a wee refreshment afterwards.
SPEAKER_06I'm guessing you have people who turn up every so often and say, I haven't a clue how you do this, I'm no good at it. And then you get the pleasure of seeing them be amazed by what they've achieved at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_07Absolutely. And I get people who come in very nervous and say, Oh, wish my husband or my granny or my next door neighbor wouldn't have bought me this, and you I kind of go, Okay, that's a bad start. And you see, people come nervous. Or funny one of the funny ones was ever was a man says, I'm meant to be watching the match tonight, and my wife trimmed me on to this here, and within 15 minutes she says, This is the best thing I've ever done. I'm glad I didn't watch a match. So it's that type of thing where people do come in with wee bit, and I can see them feeling nervous actually. And then just the next thing is you know, we pat in the back and say, Come on, you'll be alright. It's only a bit of cooking. We're not doing any surgery here. We're just cooking, you know.
SPEAKER_06No, but you have a gift, and and and as I say, a speaker's a man who's done a wee bit with you. For example, when whenever we made chump, you taught us to pipe it and to get it onto the plate, and it looked amazing. And the two of us looked at each other with, can't believe we've done this.
SPEAKER_07There's just a little tricks of the chef's trade, isn't it? And uh fascinating. You pass that on to people and they think, you know, oh but they don't think it rightly so. They've they've achieved something that they've never done before.
SPEAKER_06We'll come back to the uh the cookery school and the whole chef world and how you came to be there doing that shortly. But let's get an idea of where you're from. Now we're sitting in commission studios in Dundonald, and in many ways you're a local boy.
SPEAKER_07I'm not far from here actually. I'm originally from the Castle Ray Road, came from around Lupeland area there, uh of east Belfast. Uh anybody that lives in Northern Ireland know that area. I spent, I suppose, my early parts of my life there. There was I think it was about eight, eight, uh attended Harley Memorial School. And then I moved up just down the road here to Dunlady, the original Dunlady. Yeah. I would have gone to Donnelly Primary School, loved it. And then I moved on to Secondary School, which I detested. Well, not in the school, but uh I I I loved my early part of my um uh years at at the primary school because it was a bit more fun for me, you know. So I'm I'm actually I would say you spell fast and Donald man.
SPEAKER_06I'm proud of it. And yet in your mid-teens you found something you love to do. And I love this story because it's about an aunt who emigrated to the States decades ago and a granny who hoarded money.
SPEAKER_07What happened? My granny still lived in Willoughfield, obviously, round the corner from where you live in Libland, and she lived in um Baden around Willoughfield Street. And uh she my daddy was an only child, um my granny was the old fashioned granny who uh didn't give out too many hugs and stuff, you know. I was that type of lady and uh lovely lady, but she she was came from through the war years, and basically whatever money she had, she never spent it. She just didn't spend it and uh hoarded it, as you said, and when she died, we were finding bags of money on their and boxes and pillowcases and this. And one thing she said within her will or a chat to my dad was her sister was called Esther. Esther went over to America in the twenties, type around about that area. She went out twice in the one year when so we found out through looking back at um ancestral reports and stuff that she'd actually met a man in the first year. She's usually a man, yeah. And uh and she had I don't know, she must have plenty of money or saved money very quickly to get very back to get quickly back to America. And she went back to Connecticut. You you didn't fly, did you? She went back on a liner twice, yeah. And the first second time she could ever come back. And she ended up marrying uh a man called Will or Bill, and he lived in a beautiful part of America called Connecticut. Orange County. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Orange, Connecticut. Not the Orange County, but it's two Orange Counties in America. Orange and lovely man, and obviously done very well. She married very well. They're living in a beautiful big home in America, and so the whole thing was my granny wanted me to go out and see her sister, meet her sister and the whole family. And we headed out there when I was about I think it was about fourteen or fifteen, and around that. I think it was like third or fourth year in school. And a lips kind of like a I think no was fourth year, light switch came on because as soon as we arrived, the we were picked up in this big fancy car. It actually was a lemon scene. JF Kenny Airport was sitting for us ready, and uh that was the beginning of We Lad and each people, what the heck's going on here? We're in a lemon scene. We're heading towards this, we didn't know the size of the house, and we ended up in this big lovely home, and there was all her family, his side, and her kids and stuff, and there was a big kind of what we call Northern Ireland, a spread laid on for us. And it was just amazing, and it was all these different jellied fruits and slaws and sliders and all the American stuff that I'd never seen in life. I went the heck's going on here. Because if you remember back in the day, and he spelled fast and was spuds in your soup, and but it's up like that in Korean as well, yeah. And and you just it was just plain food. So I thought that was really great that first day, and this is amazing, and all that's it. As you know, it was like so crazy, you know. You go, well, this food, what's that food? And then hey, as the days went on, the food just got getting better, you know. She was making these magnificent breakfasts, pastrami on rye, and all this stuff, and I thought, my goodness, and there was like a light bulb switch inside me. I can't I have this thing for food. Not because it was so yummy, it was just because there was there was a passion inside of me about I don't want to get involved in this food thing. So um picked her brains, watched her, do a bit of baking and all that sort of stuff. We used to get um a hamper center from Mary for Christmas, and then it was like a jar of cookies and uh uh like a fruit loaf and stuff, and we used to look forward to that. So even then coming up, that I must have had this little thing inside me. I actually really love this thing called food. We all love food, but there was something different. But there's something about that trip that awakened it in you. And it just awakened in me completely. And uh on the way home and I remember saying to my dad, I want to be a chef. Dad liked off and say, What the heck's going on here? What's he on about? I don't want to be a chef. Uh so um as soon as I got home, I applied for me to get in the Port Rush Gating College, and I got it.
SPEAKER_06So that was great. That that's where you were taught. Yeah. And uh the rest is as people often say is history because that that's been your career as a chef ever since. And what I love about the different things you've done is nothing was ordinary, Stephen. For that's a wee bit. Like, you know, um you do a bit here, you do a bit there, and then you get a job offer to cook for of all people. The Guinness family. Yes, I did.
SPEAKER_07How how? Well, I was working down in Parliament building that time in the members' dining room. At Stormont. At Stormont, yeah. And I I find you remember someone saying to me um Lindy Guinness or Lady Lindy Dufferin, we'd be interested in talking to you. I was only a young fellow, I was only 20, 21, and she was like sh her her her cook or chef was leaving after so years, the lady called Elaine was leaving after years and she needs a a chef or a cook and she was like a young, young person with a bit of energy. And would I go up and do go up to the estate behind here and do a bit of a cook-off type of thing?
SPEAKER_06Banger.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah, and and and Clanny Boy City.
SPEAKER_06Absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_07So anyway, I heads up and uh my dad drove me up with the car and it's like literally over the hill. It's crazy because you you're again transported into another new world because I'm living down the hill in Dunlady, which is a you know glorified house in the set, let's be honest. And then I go up the road ten minutes and I'm into a country mansion estate, which I'd never entered in my life, never been through the gates, and your eyes are going, My goodness, what is this? Do these type of places even exist in Northern Ireland, you know, because I'm only 20, 21. And anyway, this lady who's printing the hedges at the side who looked like, you know, she was a you know, housemaid or uh or uh you know somebody who's you know, you know, didn't look like the lady of the house. Anyway, so we stopped turning away and said, We're looking for the house. She never let on how she was. And um and she said, Oh, it's sort of and I think I even think she might have put on a Northern Ireland accent, which it has not at all. She had not no and um she must have knew right to Hebrew work, you know, and we went round, found it, found the kitchen. But I I never met her until about four times after that. They put me through different sort of tasks of cooking a meal for two, a meal for twenty, a shooting lunch in the afternoon and different things, and then finally I met her. And I went, Oh, that's that woman. Who cuts the hedges? And uh anyway, you end up getting this amazing job working for her. And I bounced between here and a bit London and Dublin. Uh and it was an amazing uh opportunity. And uh as I say, well, uh it just gave me a kind of a grounding and I suppose um being able to talk to people too, because the guests would have came in and out of the kitchen. You know, it's just they're houses you're cooking in, you know, but they're big houses.
SPEAKER_06Well, these are these are posh houses in London as well as posh houses in in Ireland. Yeah. And these are people if you see them in the newspaper, put it this way, you know who they are, you recognise them as celebs, they're VIPs, they're big families, whatever.
SPEAKER_07I had knew whom the celebrity ones of TV, you know, like DM Ed Night Rage and Mick Jagger and people like that and and you know, the Dumbledoreys who were you know so I knew their faces, but the other people who, you know, when you talk about the Rothschilds and you talk about Rocco Forty and you talk I mean, I was and I was dealing with these people, you know, weekly. And it didn't face me. But it was really great, you know, when I go back and think of it, and royalty and all sorts, and um so I was cooking with these people in my twenties and uh I'm very appreciative of my cooking.
SPEAKER_06Begs a very obvious question, which is why didn't you stay? What was it about Stephen Jeffers that said ultimately, my future lies elsewhere?
SPEAKER_07Well it was really um I looked at the gardener, I looked at the farm manager, I looked at the butler, and they were institutionalized into this world. And they'd been there, someone had been there forty years. And they tell a story about the butler, lovely man, picking up Robert John, called him. Robert John been there all his life. And I remember somebody saying to me, If you go in there, Robert John's flat, there's still weird envelopes sitting there from 40 years ago, you should have needed up in, you know? And and and I just thought, you know, do I want to go on in that world or have I got more to give? And it could have been very easy to stay in that world. And to be honest with you, it'd have been less stressful than I think of now. As we will discover, absolutely, yeah. Because your flats are part of the job, it's paid for. Your car is paid for. Your dinner, your shopping, you just got it through the account. There, you know, so now your wages weren't great, but the opportunities were great. And no bills. No, you had no belt. You really uh that's the bottom line. Well, you're hiding one, there's no belt. There's no belt at all. And you were living really comfortably actually. You know, I had access to her horse, you know. I uh yeah, she had a horse called Viking, and I I read her horse when she was away and mucked it out and done all that. So I had a really great life. You know, when you worked, you worked really hard, but when she wasn't there or she was away maybe in uh Africa or wherever she might have been, you were off. So um you you weren't working all year, but when you did work you you were full on. So it would have been very comfortable for me to stay there, but I thought it'd more to give, you know. We made the movie about me and my wife. We got married during the estate. We moved we made the movie about seven years later, mine was about twenty-eight. Yeah, that was it. And moved on. To do what? What did you start off doing? Well, I I kind of started a small restaurant very quickly, which didn't last very long, in Cumber called the refectory, um, with a partner. And I suppose we could have been still there too. I was a nightmare, man. And we decided we got we got bought out, we've done alright, we got paid, I saved money up in the Calandy Boy, we got bought out very quickly by an Indian consortium Indian guy spotted off me. And um we then went over to Chris Neals and Donica D. And I done a few months of a franchise situation with the Russell's Russell's brand, people who know Northern Ireland, and then we we put down a sizable deposit and bought the place off of them. And we operated it very well for many years. And I would done it for about ten years, so I I owned Gryce Nines, I transformed Gracelines into I suppose a normal pub to a gastro pub. We were rated the Michelin guide very highly. We would have what we'd call uh equivalent to what I read, a bib gourmade, which is we been under the Michelin star for a pub. So we again attracted rich and the famous and the ordinary people of of Northern Ireland who loved the great food, and it became kind of a mecca for really good food, especially our Sunday was massive. A normal Sunday you could have walked in there, and George Betts had been sitting there, and Van der Mom was there, and Paul Rankin and all the different people. Of course they were Eamon Holmes, and they'd all have been sitting there on a Sunday, and so it was it was it was a great spot. And again, I got an offer that I couldn't refuse but shouldn't have refused, uh, to sell up. And ten years later I got, you know, I think I sold it for three times I would have bought it. So big money. It was three quarters of a million those days. Serious money, yeah.
SPEAKER_06And I was only a wee lad in my thirties. You used an expression a moment ago and it it it it's caught me, which you said I was getting difficult, you know, I was a nightmare to work with. Now here's a wee boy, and we're getting on to faith matters here, who was raised with a Christian culture around you, and as a wee boy you knew the tenets of the gospel, you'd prayed the prayer, as a young teenager you had taken your Christianity seriously. And here you were in this life, being a nightmare and being difficult. What happened?
SPEAKER_07Well, uh I mean I I I I I was um I I made that prayer down the Wee Baptist Church here in Donald, actually, I was about eight. And I went on drawing my faith. Um I went to the tabernacle at Whitewell, sat under McConnell for years, uh, listened to the gospel was strong. And I headed off to college and actually when people all my mates in college were out prison, doing the discos, doing the tracks, doing all that. I sat in in my uh flat and didn't up in Port Rush and really really was grounded in my faith. And then I hit about 2021 and things started to change, you know. So Was it with a success? Definitely was. Uh uh no no doubt. And and obviously the highs and the lows of my job. Yes. Because uh actually in those days it was nearly a constant high. There's very little lows, because the constant high was we would call service and being adrenaline, adrenaline rush the whole time. And then after it, you know, I'll have a pint or have another pint. It wasn't pints, I was drinking champagne because I could afford it. And um and it was one glass, another glass, and then the next thing was, you know, you'd you'd after Sunday afternoon, after what we call service, I would have go into two days, you know. And um so I just I just drifted and then I got a bit of a I got a name behind me, and got a a not a celebrity status, but a minor, let's call it, and uh and and people started to know me and interviews and everything was touching, was going really well, and I could do nothing went wrong. Lots of friends uh appeared from here there in the road. Lots of people wanting to do business with me, lots of people wanting to do partnerships, and they could see this young fellow who had some sort of a talent, and then I lost my way.
SPEAKER_06When you read the story, and this has only just occurred to me, Stephen, when you read the story of the prodigal son, you must think to yourself, I wish I'd read that a bit more.
SPEAKER_07Absolutely, absolutely, completely. And you know, there's many like me, and you can you you see it all the time, and it is it's I don't know, it's uh uh many regrets, well, you know, many regrets, but then I look back too and go, That the Lord had planned for me, and um I wouldn't my story wouldn't be so interesting if I wasn't here to tell about the darker days.
SPEAKER_06Well that's the old curse, isn't it? Yeah, you be cursed with an interesting life. I know. That's it. So here you are, you're still in business. You've got restaurants, you've sold, you've got a bit of money, you've put payments down in something new. And I I mean you mentioned it a moment ago. It just keeps going from strength to strength. There's a whole lot coming on stream, and you're working very hard. How big did it get? How many people did you have with you?
SPEAKER_07Um before uh we'll get to the story when things went wrong, um, when I had to go into administration and that type of thing. I was up to four restaurants. Four? Yeah. Yeah, four, four. Uh and there's stuff before that didn't happen didn't work right. Four and sixty-five employees and around that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06So to the world, that is he's made it. He's big, he's huge, he's a successful businessman, he's a celebrity, he's all these things. And you've just mentioned it, so let's deal with it. It all went wrong. The costs got on top of you with one venture, and ultimately that's administration, that means bankruptcy. That means you can't. A director of a company for years and years and years, and you have to do something else to make your living. How did it go wrong? Was it just the business got difficult, you were unlucky?
SPEAKER_07A mixture of all those things, you know. I expanded, expanded, expanded with probably not when you say not enough experience, I had experience, but not enough expansion experience. And not that thing behind me, but let's use McDonald's as an ex as an example, you know, things in place and all those things. And also that very simple thing of I'm a working class boy from East Belfast and I don't understand money. It's like a real, real or finance. Finance, yeah. Finance. And so with one one particular um place where we went in and uh we were all ready to go and we were going to replace all the um kitchen equipment, your cook cookers and all and all the rest of it, and all run off gas. And we had all the stuff ordered, but ready to go. We had our mentor G ready, we had our head chef ready, we had the whole brigade of staff ready, all on the payroll, ready to go in the next week or two. And hey ho, didn't the gas people condemn the whole gas in the kitchen? And that knocked us back, I think several months. We went to the landlord and said, look, can you can you help with us? You know, and landlord kind of said no, uh, they wouldn't help with the rent. And that's business. That's just business. And uh when I look back, that's business. So we were just knocked for six with our cash flow. And that was the start of the end of the four places. Domino effect. Yeah. That goes wrong, something else goes wrong, something else goes wrong, and then it was Robin Peter Pay Paul, and it wasn't working.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you can't go very long like that.
SPEAKER_07And then say, well, things happen after that, you know, leading up to it.
SPEAKER_06So the businesses were gone. Yeah. I hesitate to ask you this because this is a very difficult time in someone's life, and it can happen when you didn't set out to get anything wrong. It happened.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_06How low did you go?
SPEAKER_07Very and into the darkest hole, you know. I don't like to talk about it too much because it brings back too much too, but I I'm in a very dark place. And again, as I say now, you can take out that what you want. It's dark as it gets. Really. And then in between the whole thing, too, I was dealing with uh three three people who had lost my life too. My granny died, my mummy died, my best friend died in a car crash. Uh and there's all this stuff to deal with. And then obviously our marriage went wrong. We had to take a break within our marriage because of the stress of finances. So I was kind of setting a home, living in a lovely home down on the coast there. Um five bedroom home, a couple of acres of gardens, and thinking, what's going on here? Can't even pay my mortgage, nothing left. Um I'm in a I'm in the worst place. Nobody with me, just me and my own. And that's when um I remember that August. I think it was 14 years ago. I'm not great with numbers, you know, but um 14 years ago. And there's only one way out of this. There's two ways out. I didn't take the first one. Thank you. That's that's a dark hole we're talking about. I tried to. And um it didn't work by the grace of God. And um I I I just I believe it was in my no one's in my bedroom. I got on my knees and said, Lord, uh you're you're all I've left. This is this is over. And I do hear people say you're here you're here called talking to you. I d I I believe you did here to God talking to me. And the thing I got back was, I can sort of decide for you, but it's not gonna take it's not gonna happen overnight. Actually, that was so right because it didn't happen by the time you get through all the administration, all that stuff and whatever, it it takes a long time. You go through courts and go through all that stuff. So, um I mean that's the Lord to give me wisdom through the whole thing too, because again, my knowledge of this is another new world we're getting into. This is a world of administration, bankruptcy, a different speak, a different way solicitors talk and courts and journalists writing about you.
SPEAKER_06I was never assigned a story, it was about you, but people probably I know where. And not easy for you to be on the other side of it.
SPEAKER_07Honestly, i it w that that part was really hard too, because when you you were doing so well and there they wrote, you know, headlines and chef and hot water and all these things and band chef and you know, all this stuff, you know, and uh it's not nice. It's painful. It's painful. And they're sitting in the courtroom with you, you know, with their pens, and you're and then you're going home and you're reading the story the next couple of days, and you're going, why wh wh why are they doing this? What what pleasure?
SPEAKER_06Obviously, it's hell it sells newspapers. You're listening to the commission files, time for a quick break.
SPEAKER_03Azariah and Abigail have a big problem. What's wrong? Abigail.
SPEAKER_00Oh, Azariah, it was awful.
SPEAKER_03What?
SPEAKER_00The women. Some of them were at the well when I went earlier. Oh, Azariah, why do they despise me so? The names they called me, I've never done any of them any harm.
SPEAKER_02I have a good mind to go out and give a few of them a piece of my mind.
SPEAKER_00Oh, Azariah, I love you so but that wouldn't do any good. They'd only turn on you too.
SPEAKER_02Anyway, the outcome of our talk later was that she was going to go to the well at a time when no one else did, in the middle of the day. It was very hot then, but at least you'd be left in peace.
SPEAKER_03But there's a stranger at the well, and their lives are changed forever. Commission presents Mr. Marathon. You can hear this series and many others. Just search for Commission Radio Drama wherever you get your podcast.
SPEAKER_01Hello, this is Drew Gibson, here to remind you about Commission's sister podcast, Faith, Hope, and Sport. Great interviews, great sporting stories, and plenty of reflections on how lives of Christian faith and competitive sport can be lived together. Find us wherever you look for podcasts. Just search for Faith, Hope, and Sport.
SPEAKER_06This is the Commission Files with Will Leach, and we're chatting with Chef Stephen Jeffers. So here you are, you've you've heard God speak. You know, he's intervened in your life in a big way. What did you start doing?
SPEAKER_07I had to go through all that stuff that was getting through. Obviously, my wife had been great in her own way of letting me see my own children and stuff, and she didn't stop that. The mother in law, who was a very safe lady who still is, um, I said to her on the phone, like, you know, I've I've I've I've I've come back to God, you know, I've come back to God. And I think she took a pinch of salt. She thought, man, he's a chancer, you know.
SPEAKER_06You could forgive her for thinking, oh, he's trying this, no, he's not.
SPEAKER_07Trying it on, you know. And um so I had to go through that. I had uh my wife had to meet up with me to go to meetings of solicitors and stuff, and then she she honestly started to see a complete change in me. And she she looked at me and went, right, this is a different character, you know. Um and I started going to church and started going to the prayer meetings and stuff like that. And then God restored my marriage, which was amazing. And through my m my wife came back to live with and put me in our home, family home. She rang me one Saturday months later, actually, and said that I've given my wife back to God, which was terrific. My eldest daughter, who I was bringing to Iwell up with me on a Monday night at one of our prayer meetings. Again, she she could say within that prayer meeting and give her life to God, and she's a great girl. She's really actually out of us all, I just think she is she's got it, you know. And she she went actually over to Kenya, done a mission with the church, and now she's married a Kenyan guy through our church. My youngest girl became a Christian too. Her faith is slightly different, she does it in a very quiet way, and then with that I became a Christian too. So it was just amazing what came out of that really bad situation of me going bankrupt and coming back to the Lord. And I'm not saying that was because of me, I'm saying I'm saying I'm giving God the glory. But actually, look, look at the way things have turned round, and whatever's happened within me has affected all the people around me. And they're going, and they're going, I want a bit what he has.
SPEAKER_06You know. It it's a story I I've heard before quite often in the studio of I was successful but things weren't right, and God fixed everything, but he broke all the other stuff. Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_07You take all the rubbish away, all the things that I thought were important. You know, I couldn't wait to come in the papers back in the day. Now I couldn't be bothered. You know, you write about me if you want. You know, when I wrote my first book, I wanted my face in front of my first book, my second book, my face isn't even in it, you know. And it's just you you know the saying. I do, I do. And and it's just that thing where now there's a contentness. Of course, I have my bad days of giving. Well, there's a contentness in, you know, God's got this.
SPEAKER_06What did happen was then that people that you knew, because there are setbacks in business and and all restaurateurs and all chefs know about it, people were able to help you give you work, and then uh opportunities started to come up. And this new thing and and it wasn't initially out on your own, of teaching others how to cook and bringing people on big change.
SPEAKER_07Well I I had I went through, you know, several I really had I really got humbled, you know. The Lord humbled me. And I ended up having to work for people. That was difficult. You know, uh and had to, you know, do what other people told me to do, you know, and had and so uh I ended up doing a several several little projects with different people, and they're all very skilled people too. And I ended up for a while actually running as an executive chef of the Malmaison over here in Northern Ireland. And I was doing kind of call out a blue, and there was a guy who owned this Moor and Seafood bar and he said to me, Stephen, look, we're looking somebody do the odd Saturday class for us here, you know. We have a cookery school up the stairs. Keen I never thought of cookery school. Keep talking about the new worlds that I go into, you know. And I walked in there one Saturday morning, a lot of fish in front of me, a couple of pages in front of me, saying, This is a class, take the class with 16 people booked today, and away you go. And here's me, all right, right, okay. So sixteen people turned up. I taught them all how to fill out a sea bath or cook a bit of whatever, cook cook an oyster or cook a mussel, and um and that was the start of it. You know, the the owner of the the Teafood bar rang me after the class in the afternoon back to my other job and said, Stephen, great reports, great reports, you know, very encouraging it was I have to say. We we've got just some tremendous reports from the staff here working with and the the uh clients we had into there. Could you come back next week? I said, Yep, no problem. It was good too, because it gave me a bit of extra money I needed, you know. Yeah, and um yeah, came back the following week, and I think it was a few weeks after. He says, like, we we do so many classes a week here. Would you like to come here, you know, self-employed type of thing, and run the school, you know. I says, Yeah, I'll do that. So I went up there, run it for a few years for them. Uh they were great because they left me alone, they let me get on my thing. And that's what I needed. I needed left alone and just get on with it. I'm my own man, you know. I think we've I think we've worked that out. And they left me alone, let me get on with it, run it as if it was mine. We tried to do some sort of a partnership deal, but that wasn't wasn't gonna work. And um hey-ho, one night um we do like any cookery school, you do what your events call your team building events, you you do church parties, you do hand-doos, stagdo's, work dos, and the work there was a workdo basically off the management team of Forestide shopping centres had come over for a for a bit of a night, and um I ended up getting the opportunity off the the PA of the guy who ran it and back in those days, who a great guy called Lee, had wanted to f further discuss things with me about running a school within Forestight. So he had the idea, which is amazing when you think. But I believe the Lord gave me an idea, you know? Yeah, you know, uh it turned out anyway. We found out that Jimmy Oliver had a had a cookery school in the Westfield shopping centre over in London, so I went over and had a wee look at it. Oh, I didn't know that, I've been to it. Yeah. So I had a look at that. Does that work? Does that work now? And I thought, well, actually that does work. And um so I it wasn't much of a decision to make, but I obviously had to be a business guy, you know, and uh, oh let me think about it. There's no thinking about it at all. Yes, don't say yes too quickly. And um so that was it. Perhaps ten years ago. Uh well. And um ten years later we're we're still here.
SPEAKER_06We're gonna take a another turn for a wee minute, just for a wee minute, because I I want to give people the idea of the full rounded Stephen Jeffers here. I'm gonna play a short clip of a local band playing live. This is George Jones in his heart and soul gospel band, and I want you to listen to the lovely muted trumpet playing and the male vocalist who joins in on harmonies because I think we know who it is. After your muted trumpet there, Stephen. Tell me about that song and about that band.
SPEAKER_07Well, that song's a beautiful song. It's kinda uh the lyrics r really really speak to me because when actually probably when I was singing that song, the lyrics wouldn't have spoken to me the same because I was probably pre before I got. So you were ill. Yeah. Um and that's about the enemy, or the devil we'll call it, um, telling you a a person who was ill that they weren't gonna make it, or a person maybe with mental health issues or whatever, and then the Lord saying, You are gonna make it, we're gonna get you through this. So that that's a great song. Joy, terrific vocalist, her dad was a pastor was a pastor called Sammy McGrath, um, far side Christian centre over there, too. Funny enough, close to where my business is now. And Sammy and I go back many years to the kind of Church of Glow Neal movement, because Sammy was a great musician and trumpet player and multi-intermentalist. He could play anything. He's just an amazing person.
SPEAKER_06You see, the reason I throw this in is up until now in your story, we haven't mentioned learning to play the trumpet and being such a fine singer.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it's another part of me, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Was that at school? Was that outside?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I I I I was I was a great singer in school and the teacher spotted this. I was kind of Joseph in the play and all. You weren't great at anything else, just to sing To sing yeah, the the look they just thought, oh and they would have got me to kind of stand in the classroom and it's barras when you think of it, and sing sing as that song in down in the school here. And uh and then when obviously when you get to secondary school in the reports they put musical or whatever and I was handed a cornet when it was in first year and I played the cornet. Do you know what? I wasn't a great reader of music, uh, but it was I could just pick a tune up and play it and sing it and feel it. Could feel it. Um one of my best friends, actually, Keith, he went to he ended up being in in the Irish Guards and the band and I kept the music going, but I kept going in a different way. And I I done it through praise actually because I played in the Tabernacle praise team when before I drifted off. And uh and I would uh I actually for a short time for about three years and I was in the r um Royal Irish Rangers TA military band. Yeah, so I've done that too. Do you play Killer Lou? Yeah, did they? Yeah, yeah. So I done that. And the boys all do the shout in the middle. Big yo, yeah. So I I done that for a while. I I really quite enjoyed that. Uh and that was um done that for a while. And then um I kind of probably give I give a chumble up for many years actually when I when I what we call backslid in the middle there, didn't play much. And then uh started to play again.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it was just lovely to hear it and lovely to see that side of you. But we've got to deal with the elephant in the room, but you mentioned about becoming ill. Yeah. And there's a two-year story of you knowing something was wrong but it not being diagnosed for for various reasons, people weren't clocking what it was was wrong with you. But take me to the moment when the doctors sat down with you and said, Alright, I do have news and we have worked out what it is.
SPEAKER_07Well, two years of back and forth and weren't getting any sense. And I had to go privately. So my wife had bringed me into a private ulcer clinic and went up to the the ulcer clinic that Friday morning. I think my appointment was ten or eleven, I can't remember. Such a shell shock. I don't know, it was in the morning time anyway. And yeah, and I went to see a doctor called Dr. Ulla. Thank the Lord I met him, Dr. Ulla, 'cause I wouldn't be here today, Dr. Ewell. And he done what the rest should have done. He opened my mouth, had a like in with a old fashioned torch on his head and discovered a huge chamber within my throat. He said to me, there's another room behind us here. Can we go in and have a like pediscope down your nose and down your throat? And um Yeah, confirmed this was a massive chamber right across the side from that side to here. And said that I was basically breathing through there's one sitting here, people won't see it, but there's a kind of a pen pencil. There's a pen there. Yeah, pencil size of here.
SPEAKER_06So that was the the the diameter of a pencil, which is nothing. That's what I was bringing through.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. It's bad. Yeah, prose red flag right away to the royal and shoot over to the royal that Monday, because that was a Friday, had to go home on the Friday to my daughter's house. He'd just moved in there, newbie house, got help her, and I had to give them all the bad news after she was so happy in her new home. Dad's cancer. Stage three gun on the four. And uh we we prayed as a family that a afternoon I had to go back to work. Straight back in because we're really booked the whole weekend, and uh I don't know how to cut through it.
SPEAKER_06Go back to work with his phone shell hanging over you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Smiling and doing the entertainment doing your cheeky chappy thing. And I know, and that was the whole weekend. And uh spoke to my pastor that afternoon, Malcolm Duncan. Um Malcolm's super guy, really, really prayer warrior, believes in prayer. And he said, Do you mind never released this to the congregation for prayer? And then that was it. Um and unf um fortunately and unfortunately, because it it was released to our congregation, our congregation told the next person told the next person told me. And it felt like well no, now I knew that weekend that I had cancer and my phone was never stopped. They had a day of prayer for me in church that Sunday, then I'm of hands and stuff. That was very overwhelming, Will, I have to say. But I did appreciate it. Um and that was the start of my cancer journey then. Uh from that Monday was confirmed by the Royal that what Dr. Will said was completely correct, because that's what they had to do. They'd have to tie the two things up together. And then we were into uh the let's get 'em fixed and uh sorted out.
SPEAKER_06If I were to Google you, and not surprisingly, I did. It says gruelling, life-changing battle, ten rounds of chemo, thirty rounds of radiotherapy.
SPEAKER_07That's actually wrong. It was twelve chemo. Twelve chemo. There you go.
SPEAKER_06You know, so every journalist's lesson. Google it, then check it with the source.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, but that that's okay. That's okay. But that's interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_06Do you know when you when you go through it and the numbers do count because everyone knows great and here you are in another dark, difficult place, brought right down, but this time with God. Did that make a difference?
SPEAKER_07Absolutely. Absolutely. And even looking back now, I don't look back probably enough because what Garb brought me through was quite amazing. And what I went through was crucial it was brutal. And if he was sitting beside me today, Dr. Ely would say he would agree, and and he said he probably says this today, anybody's go through what I haven't through. It's one of the most brutal treatments of cancer to go through. And I'm not saying the recipe, but it's a brutal cancer to get because it's it's a cancer where you end up you have to be starved because you can't use your mouth anymore. You have to be fitted with a peg in your stomach, which is fading peg. And the treatment's horrible, it's really horrible. And yeah, that was brutal, but the Lord brought me through it, you know. I went down from a tubby wee man at far too heavy from from a 38 waste right down to 26, 28 waste very quickly. No food for over a year, no food at all. I mean, I was feeding on supplements through my stomach. And as you can imagine, without the food, the energy's not there the same. So you have to go through the whole chemos, the radiations, chemo and radiation sometimes the same day. That was rough, you know. And my chemo was there's thousands of chemos by the way, different types of chemo. My chemo was the eight hours, eight hour chemos where you have to go through the whole thing. And then I have been I would have been transported from upstairs in the city down to the suite where you would have got your c uh your radiation on a bed to take this radiation and chemo at the same chemo drip was on and taking radiation at the same time. You can imagine how difficult that would be.
SPEAKER_06Was I mean I know there must have been moments where you're fed up, you're depressed, you're dark, you're hating it, you're hurting. Stuff's not working. Yeah. And you as any Christian is encouraged to do, cry out to God, why this, why me, why this happened? Everything I've been through, why this?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, and that's uh it's uh it's funny um well, because that didn't happen towards the end, because I think it was so relentless, the treatments. At the start I thought, hmm, as I said jokingly before, my wee hard man for me spell fast, I've got to get through this. And then towards the end, when you're you're on your like your 25th or sixth radiation and you've done nearly every chemo there is to be done. Because what they do is they try and get as much chemo as you can to to kill the cancer. And they they said to me they'll throw the kitchen sink at me and see how I go. Um so towards the end I was just getting worn down, worn down, tears and no iron.
SPEAKER_06And we haven't mentioned this yet. Lots of surgeries, difficult, complex surgeries.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah, no, the yeah, there's several surgeries. You know, first surgery didn't work, and then through the throat to see if they could get into the tonsils area and take a tonsils out and stuff, and it was too close to uh a main artery in my throat, and they said if they had to touch that artery while they were operating, that would have been had a died on the operating theater. So that didn't work, and they had several surgeries after that. So which weren't always successful. But the the the um I also had a mysterious cancer on my cheek here, which we found, um, which we didn't know was was a separate cancer. And uh we thought we'd have to go through that other side of an act to get in to take it out. And uh I always say whether it was God or whether it was the first round of chemo, but it was amazing because it disappeared very quickly within the first round of or two of chemo. So they never had to do anything. Never had to do anything. Actually, that went back and said it's gone. That was amazing. Those are good words to hear, aren't they?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that one that was the that was the easy one, unfortunately. Here you are, and um I'm I've been loving this conversation, of course I have. But here you are sitting in studio two with me, significantly recovered. Now not totally. You know, there's one ear, doesn't work so well, and the throat gets dry, which why I you know I made sure there's a glass of water for you today and so on. That's the result of the illness. But here you are having gone through that, having gone through the business trauma, and it is traumatic when it happens to people. You teach, you sing, you play, you're involved in loads of charities work. You've encouraged me no end in doing this work by being so encouraging and helpful and cooperative and having ideas and saying I'll come in and here you are. This is not the same person who was the chef in all those restaurants who people found it not easy to work for, and yet you are the same person. This is an obvious question, but that person and this person sitting in front of me now couldn't be more different, Stephen. That's what God does.
SPEAKER_07You know, softens your heart. You know the grace of God. I hope I'm an example of what God can do in people's lives. I hope that when people come into cookery school without me preaching at them, because I don't, they see something different. I do of course I do, I do read reviews about me as I do, but I don't read about me, I'm reading about the school and the reviews I read are about me being encouraging. Funny talented, all those lovely things, and um but that's honestly I couldn't be so much different to where I was many those years ago before things went wrong. It's just amazing what the Lord can do.
SPEAKER_06You said something a good while ago, you said, Of course I regret the mistakes I made. We all do. We've all made many. The thing about your our adventure with God is that he picks you up where you are and says, Right, well come on now. That's right. We're back running the race, you know. And if if if you were off on a detour, well, you were. But here he is with you now, running the race with you now. It's such a big deal. Does that make you a happy man now? You've all all these things in your life you'd rather not have had, and yet you strike me as a very happy man.
SPEAKER_07I am happy, yeah, but I do have like all of us, daily battles with you know I'm not calling mental health, you know, uh to me, that's too far. But I do have my days where, you know, oh my goodness, this here we go again. What's next, you know, are you know struggles. But just having that faith behind me, having that thing called prayer, where you leave it with God and you go, God, you know, pick me up, you know. I mean I was praying away down the car this morning, you know, um, about this and also my powers of thankfulness to to what he's brought me through. Uh and it's easy to forget, and we all forget what God's brought us to. I mean sometimes we need a good slap around the back of the head from ourselves, you know. Because you do I mean, only two years ago I was in a terrible place, you know, really terrible place, um, health-wise and stuff, and uh and you get on with life, and but another way too, that's a great thing that you're getting on with life and getting on with things and going, I'm not gonna be sitting back where I was two years ago, or be thinking, oh, just what I came through, you know. Um and so and that's and God, I I honestly say it's to my wife all the time when things do get hard and tough with her, like I'm going through stuff with my dad in the moment, my wife's gonna through stuff with her mom, and stuff with said, it's all age stuff, it's and stuff that's hard to watch, and sometimes you go to God, what's going on in God again? You know, but I I I keep reminding my wife, God's got this, and it I do know I'm reminding my wife, I'm remind myself too God's got this, and you know uh God wants us to be happy. The Lord doesn't want us to be miserable. He didn't He's never set out for us to be miserable, He wants us to be happy, top form. And that's and that's what right that's how I try to lead my life, which you just said. Well, you look happy, you get you you're you've got a bit of energy about you. And to me, that's that's that's the way a Christian should look to me, to the to the the public.
SPEAKER_06Well, you've taught me so much, you you you've taught me, and this is the shallow part of it, how to cook pork and how to make champ, which I really, really enjoyed, and that was fantastic, and that was that was a great night out. But you've taught me so much just about life and about attitude and about relying on God in in this conversation. Stephen, chef, thank you so much for joining me in the Commission Files. Thanks for telling your story. Thanks for bringing your energy to me and to everyone listening. So thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks to everyone for taking the trouble to listen to us. If you enjoyed it, I certainly did. Why not subscribe to the Commission Files if you haven't already? If you'd like to learn about making radio programs or podcasts or how to support Commission and our work so we can keep going, try commissionradio.org. There are ways to support us. You'll find links to our YouTube channel, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages. There's a great new video going to be doing the rounds and on the website, so check it out, and I'll be back soon. Until then, bye bye.
