Former soldier enjoying daily grind after opening Northallerton cafe

“It is definitely refreshing to do this job,” he said from behind the counter of his shop on Regency Mews. “There is a picture on the wall of me on March 30 this year teaching weapon drills and close quarter battle in Lebanon. On March 31 I was on an aeroplane coming back here, then on the Monday morning I was taking the keys to Fortunate Son. We opened 10 days later on April 11 after reconditioning the whole place from a former tea rooms.”

The road to the North Yorkshire market town hasn’t always been smooth for Chris, and the name of the shop – taken from the song by American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, which became a Vietnam anti-war movement anthem in 1969 – suggests a tough life.

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“The lyrics to the song Fortunate Son are all about those most privileged among us, those who had an easy life,” Chris explained. “I basically did everything the hard way. I left a coal mining town, Seaham Harbour, off the back of the coal miners’ strike when my family had no money.

“I went off and joined the army aged 17 years and three months – I missed out by literally a month to join the junior soldiers, so I went in to join the regular soldiers as a 17-year-old. And it was the Parachute Regiment, as well, so I was in at the deep end where I did 22 years.

“The whole idea was that I was budding artist and graphic designer but I couldn’t even afford to get the bus to college. When the college arranged trips I always made an excuse that I couldn’t go but in reality I couldn’t raise the money. So I thought this isn’t working out and my plan was to do three years in the army and build up some savings and go back to college.

“My dad was a reservist so he was up for it. He told me to leave home as there would be nothing happening around there for me.”

The action began almost immediate for Chris, but it was the people who he met along the way which led to a lifelong passion for coffee.

He said: “My first few months in my battalion I got ‘bunnied up’ with this well-seasoned guy in the Parachute Regiment and he showed me – this is 1991 – how to make a mocha from the kit out of an army ration pack. I was super-impressed and the coffee thing just grew from there really.

“When you’re the new guy in the battalion you’re the one making the brews so I felt like I was always the new guy at every battalion as I’d be moving every eight to nine months. You’re constantly being back to the new guy.

“I went to Northern Ireland aged 18 and a half and it was there that I had my first contact, we were taken on by snipers, had cross border shoots, and we had coffee jar bombs thrown at us. It was an interesting tour – that was back in 1992. Then it was tour after tour to Northern Ireland until the 2000s when I went to Iraq and Afghanistan where I did two tours each.”

After 22 years’ service Chris retired from the Parachute Regiment in 2002 and began work as a private contractor assisting the training of armies overseas where he passed on his knowledge to often poorly trained and motivated soldiers.

“I was all sorts in the Parachute Regiment, I was an infantry soldier, I was heavy weapons, and reconnaissance. I did training and when I left the army I became a surveillance operator and a close protection operator,” he said.

“The first job I had was working in Baghdad with the US military when they were doing the training for the Iraq Army. It was a well-paid job and was very similar to being in the army. It had all the same chain of command just with different commercial names – so instead of the commanding officer it would be the ‘in country manager’, for example.

“The in country manager would generally be a retired colonel and the operations manager would be a quartermaster or captain from a regiment where he’d be in charge of that kind of stuff, so it was very similar. I then spent nine years working in Lebanon for a British Government mission to train the Lebanese Army.

“The last job I was doing was one of the best jobs I had done – it was so rewarding. Seeing the progress of really poorly trained and motivated soldiers who had maybe only had four weeks of training. We were training them to clear rooms, clear houses, abseil down the sides of buildings, close quarter combat, medical skills, surveillance skills.”

As he entered his 50s thoughts began to turn to what would come next. And a more sedate pace of life – despite currently working seven days a week – appealed to him.

“I’ve always loved coffee and then over the past six or seven years working in Iraq and Lebanon I always had the coolest coffee making devices. I thought to myself I don’t want to be doing the private contractor work for too long, I’m 51 years old.

“I had started off serving coffee from a Land Rover for two years at country shows and out on the moors for walkers and cyclists – that was kind of my summer job. Trade is slow in the winter though.”

And so Fortunate Son was born with still a nod to his past endeavours and thoughts to the future too.

“We host the Armed Forces and Veterans breakfast club here on Saturdays, once a month,” he said. “And everything is sourced locally. Our cakes from lady who has a booth just outside. A couple of years down the line I’d like to open up another Fortunate Son.”

Fortunate Son is open 8am – 5pm, six days a week and 8am – 2.30pm on Sundays.