Our Story

Alasdair and Fiona Downes took over Le Poteau in January 2017, after falling in love with it one early Autumn afternoon in 2015. Alasdair was born in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, while Fiona was born on her parents’ dairy farm in the tiny village of Port Logan on the South West coast of Scotland.
Alasdair has had two careers before arriving at Le Poteau. Pursuing his love of food, he started off as a chef and then moved into hotel management. His second career saw him become a director of a number of education companies, mainly looking to help learners to develop and access worthwhile careers.
Fiona started her career in software marketing. She learned a lot – including the fact that she didn’t want a career in software marketing. While making up her mind about her future career, she made a sudden and fairly random decision to find a job in France. She spent a challenging (having to learn French from scratch) but amazing year working for a lovely family near to Lyon and formed lifelong friendships. This instilled in her a love of France, it’s wonderful culture and kind, welcoming people. On returning to the UK she trained as a teacher. For the past nine years she has been Head Teacher of a Primary School near Newcastle; a great job, working with incredible children.