As director of environmental health and trading standards at Croydon Council, Don Boon says he is a 'health professional' tasked with the job of tackling poverty and social exclusion. He talks to Tracey Khanna about his career and the other great love of his life... football

Don Boon has worked in public health for 38 years. After school, where his best subject was maths, he was all set to train as an accountant. He says he was "saved" by his mother, who came home one day brandishing a newspaper article advertising for trainee public health inspectors at Lewisham town hall. Don applied, got the post, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Born in Kent, but brought up in Plumstead, south east London, Don has spent most of his working life in the capital. Widely known as a food specialist today, his career actually began with housing. He started out as a public health inspector in 1962 on a four-year day release course. After he qualified, in 1966, he worked in the New Cross area where the terraced houses, which were thought of in those days as unfit, were replaced with high rise-flats. Don clearly regrets the council's decision to tear down the "slums", recognising now that while the housing was in need of repair and improvement, it offered a real community environment. He describes the renewal as something he is "not very proud of". After three years at Lewisham doing housing work, Don needed a change. He married that year, 1969, and emigrated to Canada with a wife, no job, but plenty of prospects. After a month he became a public health inspector in Toronto - an experience that was to totally change his life. "Canada was like a complete new world to me," he remembers. The Canadian authorities did not do housing, pollution, or occupational health work, so he found himself mainly inspecting food premises. "The only thing they did was food safety, food hygiene and public health." A total licensing scheme was in place at the time and if the premises were not fit, the licence was taken off them. "Compared with London, where we would be lucky to get into a restaurant once a year, we went in once a month."

Two years on from arriving in Canada, he and his wife set off on a huge round-the-world trip, arriving back in England in 1972 in much the same position as when he left three years earlier - with the same job back at Lewisham. Don's experiences abroad, however, had left him with a strong desire to work in food, so he made another dramatic career shift and moved into the private sector. He took a position as hygiene advisor for Sainsbury's supermarket chain. He says the move was one of the best things he ever did: "I already had this food thing in me from working abroad and when I saw how they were doing it here I thought 'my God, it's so far behind'."

Working in the private sector came as a huge shock in terms of the hours he had to put in and the amount of travel involved. It was during this period that he worked with another EHO, John Dripps, who completely changed his life with the way he approached things. John was one of the first EHOs to work in industry, where few companies employed public health professionals. According to Don "it was groundbreaking stuff". The team would spend a whole day inspecting one premises, which was again nothing like what was being done in local government. Don felt strongly that this kind of in-depth inspection should be being undertaken in local government, so after two years he moved on again, this time back into local government and a job at Waltham Forest. Here, he helped set up a new specialist food team, a job he says he loved.

In 1976, after two years at Waltham Forest, Don got itchy feet again and moved to the borough of Croydon as the manager of a food and health and safety team. He is still there an impressive 24 years later, something he insists was never intended. Eventually, in 1987, Don became chief EHO responsible for environmental health. The department has mushroomed under his guidance from 60 people to 180. "Since then we have taken on Trading Standards, Local Agenda 21 and the biggest job I have now, which is health policy and joint planning." This is a job that links the council with all the other health agencies and the voluntary sector. It concentrates on health policy, health inequality and joint working.

He took over this project five years ago with the idea of trying to make everyone work in partnership to provide effective health and social services care - a major task, and in his own words, "the new agenda".
In 1987, he joined Lacots as an advisor from local government, and for the last three years he has chaired the Food Strategy Group - a national group that links local government and the Food Standards Agency. A challenging and essential job, Don shows his commitment to food standards by insisting that not only does he enjoy the position, but that "it is a release from the daily routine". How does he find the time to juggle all this with his other commitments (advisor to the Audit Commission, specialist advisor to the LGA and external examiner at Greenwich University)? "I am in this job to make people's quality of life, both physical and mental, better," he explains. "I do not see myself as an enforcement officer, I see myself as a health professional working with others." When pressed, he concedes that his is "the best job in the world, because it is so interesting and varied".

But public health is not where his true passion lies. This is definitely reserved for football. An avid Charlton Athletic season ticket holder, who insists on making as many away games as is humanly possible, football helps relieve the daily stress and pressures of his working life and enables him to spend quality time with his family. Both his daughters are football supporters and one is a season ticket holder who accompanies Don to watch their team play, which she does with relish. In fact, Don admits that he secretly wanted to be a professional footballer - he played amateur football until his 40s. He says cheerily that he was not good enough, but that if he could have his time again perhaps he would have liked to be a sports journalist.

Luckily, for those in need of someone to champion their cause, Don chose public health. Interestingly, this is his preferred term over "environmental health". He thinks that this summons up a "green" image, whereas public heath implies general "wellbeing", encompassing a much wider agenda including, of course, green issues.

Poverty is clearly one of his "big issues". He sees poverty, social exclusion, the environment and education all as health issues, and agrees that in poorer areas communities are least concerned with the issues around food hygiene and food safety. "I think we need to do more about the public health issues around poverty, housing and social exclusion. So, as a director of a large London borough, it is sometimes difficult to justify spending money on food safety and food hygiene, while other services are required to address the wider public health agenda. I sympathise with other local authorities who are saying 'we do not have the resources to cover food', and are being criticised for not doing so because of other priorities.

"The biggest issue in public health today is the contrast between rich and poor. In Croydon, we have a north and south of the borough and there is a difference in life expectancy of over five years. So, if you live in the north of the borough you can expect to die five years younger. That is totally unacceptable in a modern society. This is why one of my key tasks at the moment is to address that inequality.
"My view is that environmental health departments should be doing more about poverty - about addressing the conditions in which people live, and education to break the cycle and bridge the gap between those that have and those that do not. That is the new agenda".

Croydon has recently had a monetary windfall from the local health authority - £650,000 to spend on addressing health inequalities, with further money it can bid for. The fund is managed by the Healthy Croydon Partnership, which Don was instrumental in setting up, and the priorities are poverty, social exclusion, black and minority public health and smoking. The project takes at least half his time away from environmental health and trading standards.

Even when talking about his speciality, food, Don constantly relates his remit to public health and addressing health inequalities - a cause that his 30-year career has seen him attack with vigour. "Food standards have often been seen as not as important as food safety, but in respect to poverty and long-term health issues what you eat is what you are," he says. "Clearly, food standards in terms of long-term health are more important. Food poverty is a big issue. Food poverty means you cannot always make the right choices; in the same way as if you are poor, you cannot make the choices to be green."

Don's commitment earned him a Fellowship award, presented at last year's Congress in Harrogate. Reflecting on his achievement he says: "I have been a member of the CIEH since 1962, and enjoyed a brilliant social life as an early committee member of the brilliant south west London branch. My career over the last 13 years has seen me with very little time to do any work for the Institute. So, I have never held office, except for president of the Greater London Centre in the 1990s, where I was not particularly active."

"I understand that I am one of the few people to get a Fellowship for work that I have done outside of the CIEH, which is encouraging because there are things that you can do for the profession through other routes. You can do it through education of course, but I did it through food - Lacots, the LGA and the Audit Commission."

Sadly, Don notes that many of his compatriots and colleagues whom he has worked with over the years have started to retire from environmental health. He laughingly quips that he is not sure how much time he has left before it will be his turn to retire. When that day comes it may be a bonus for Charlton Athletic, who might well see him at even more away matches, but it will certainly be a loss for public health. But who knows? Perhaps Des Lynam should start looking over his shoulder.