A HUMSHAUGH teenager who eschewed the university route in favour of an apprenticeship has landed a place with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage emporium.

Despite bagging good A-level grades at Hexham’s Queen Elizabeth High School this summer, Alice Pope (18) decided to break off in a different direction to her friends.

“You really are pushed towards university!” she said.

“But I just couldn’t stand the thought of going back for another three or four years – I wanted to do something more practical.

“The good thing about an apprenticeship is that you not only gain new skills and qualifications, but also, importantly, work experience.”

A firm believer in the farm-to-table movement that champions a more sustainable approach to agriculture, Alice was delighted when she won her place on the River Cottage level 2 apprenticeship course.

It combines 24 days of tuition at the firm’s headquarters in Axminster, Devon, with a year-long placement at one of the prestigious restaurants in the maestro’s network of contacts.

Luckily she didn’t need to worry about accommodation, as her aunt and uncle live in Wimbourne, on the edge of the New Forest.

Alice has been placed with the four star group New Forest Hotels and spent her first month at Bartley Lodge, a restaurant near Lyndhurst.

She has since moved over to one of its sister hotels, Burley Manor in Hampshire, where she is discovering a preference for patisserie.

“I enjoy patisserie most of all and because the head chef knows that, he’s put me on that section for a while,” said Alice.

“We’re about to get a new pastry chef, so I’ll shadow her when she arrives, but you do have to cover all areas of cooking to see how it all fits together.”

For the next few months, she will be part of executive chef James Foreman’s team as a new Mediterranean restaurant, inspired by the River Cottage philosophy, opens at the recently-refurbished Burley Manor.

After that she will have the option of applying for a place on the level 3 apprenticeship course. For now, though, all she will say is “We’ll just see what the future holds.”