John Crook’s life took a completely new direction when, after 30 years in the steel industry, he became a lecturer at Lakes College, where he is known for going the extra mile to help students.

After 10 years at the college, Mr Crook, 59, from High Harrington, is engineering lecturer and course leader for mechanical engineering at levels one, two and three.

And according to his students, he is making a huge impact.

They say he put 110 per cent effort into all he does.

Ben Burnett, Level 2 Performance Engineer student, said: “John is superb. He always goes the extra mile and always pushes all of his students to reach their full potential. He goes out of his way.”

As well as his formal role, he has started an engineering club where students can eat lunch and discuss engineering.

His work does not stop with his own students as other departments in the college will call on him.

“Just recently I was asked by the catering department to sharpen their knives.

“The students also help the hair department tighten the stands which they then fix the doll’s heads on to.

“We are also working on designing robust football nets that can be moved around the expensive Astro Turf without causing damage.”

At Christmas, his students made more than 200 finely engineered baubles for the rest of the college staff.

He said on many occasions the engineering rooms are like something out of Scrapheap Challenge, due to the innovative work which goes on in there.

Mr Crook devotes much of his time to his work but that does not stop him from having outside interests, too.

He is a keen football fan and sponsors three players on the Workington Reds Ladies team.

Mr Crook has found a growing number of girls and women are taking up engineering and finds that, in general, they are “very focussed” in what is traditionally a male-dominated subject and industry.

Before the pandemic he had started volunteering on the La’al Ratty and hopes to go back to that at some stage.