Jaws For Thought

Many of us are inspired to take up a career by a famous person, a mentor or family member. DAZ GOOK was inspired by a shark, he told Richard Batson

- Richard Batson

HIS ‘DAY AT THE OFFICE’ can involve swimming with sharks and cleaning inside a piranha tank. But it is a dream job for a man whose passion for the underwater world was fired as a small boy watching the movie Jaws.

Darren ‘Daz’ Gook is senior marine biologist at the Sea Life Centre in his home town of Great Yarmouth. “When I was three or four I watched Jaws and thought the scientist’s job finding the shark was cool. Some children might have been scared, but I was captivated,” he explained.

Childhood beachcombing included “getting carried away” exploring Gorleston beach with his dad a couple of years later – when he got lost, sparked a major search and got into big trouble.

“It did not put me off. I was shark crazy. The bedroom I shared with my brother was half full of Tottenham Hotspur posters and half with pictures of great white sharks and things to do with the sea.” Schoolboy Daz did work experience at the Sea Life Centre and was a weekend volunteer – helping to feed fish, prepare food and test water – then had a parttime job in the education team, giving talks.

And, when he gained his Marine Biology degree in 2005, there was a job vacancy at the centre “through fate and perfect timing”, he explained.