'I'm a paramedic with an ice cream business'

A private paramedic who also sells ice cream from the van on which he used to work as a boy says having two different jobs gives him balance.

As part of his professional commitments to patients, linked to medical businesses he owns, James Shemmeld is hands on in helping to repatriate UK citizens taken ill abroad.

But he also knows his cones and flakes, having got back into ice cream selling in 2020 to help his mental health - a job he describes as "magical".

And despite his business interests seeming worlds apart, the 46-year-old said they were not too dissimilar: "You drive down the street, you make a noise, and everyone runs towards you."

It was during the Covid pandemic that Shemmeld's thoughts returned to soft serve.

His ambulance company, based in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, had a contract to visit ill people at home and offer advice and support based on the guidelines at the time.

But he said on returning to patients a week or two later, some had died.

"It was difficult, it was really difficult, because that was everyday you were doing that, and it got to the point where I realised that my mental health was being affected quite severely."

He said he needed balance and his wife encouraged him to find something else to distract him from the work.

"So I went and bought an ice cream van, which was a bit of a shock to her to begin with," he said.

A Ford Transit was then offered to him by the ice cream man he worked for when he was young - a van for which Shemmeld had helped to design the artwork years ago.

"Who gets given something like that?" he said. "Something you had when you were young and all of a sudden it's come back, and now it's yours."

That vehicle is now one of four he owns which go out on the rounds in Newcastle, as well as to events nationwide.

"It's magical... you don't have to think or focus on anything, you just get in the van, you play the music, you stop, you serve the customers, you engage with the customers, you have a laugh, a joke," he said.

Shemmeld still does a number of long distance medical repatriations, something he enjoys due to the challenging nature of the work.

He has also taken on some drivers for the ice cream firm, as it is a seven-day-a-week business.

And as some of his ice cream customers know he is a paramedic, he has been asked for medical advice while out on the van.

"All I need on top of this ice cream van now is a blue light and I could do both jobs in one," he said.

Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.