We are often advised to work at what we love, but what if a business rekindles a lost passion?

Take Simon Tambling, the managing partner of Al Boom Diving, a sports diving business in Dubai.

The son of a peripatetic builder who erected UK government post offices in tropical backwaters, Mr Tambling caught the diving bug at the age of 10, when his family was stationed in Malawi.

In England 11 years later, he had set his heart on becoming a commercial diver but soon ran into difficulties.

At the time, in 1980, the British government offered training sponsorships for trades. Mr Tambling applied for a grant to take a diving course. The government turned him down but his girlfriend came up with the fees.

“I paid her back within a few months,” Mr Tambling says.

The very personal loan indirectly introduced him to the UAE.

After completing his course in Cornwall, Mr Tambling came straight to Abu Dhabi in 1982 to work for a contracting company: “I arrived in the middle of the Zakum oilfield in a Bell helicopter. It was good fun.” [Read More]