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College of Naturopathic Medicine student and black cab driver David Kirby went from one kind of knowledge to another… he tells us why he is studying naturopathic nutrition at CNM.
I grew up in South East London only ever wanting to be a black cab driver. At 32 I embarked on the ‘knowledge,’ which took three years to complete. I had to learn up to 15,000 streets and find my way to over 12,000 buildings.
My lifestyle meant I had no time for exercise, was constantly sitting down and drinking up to eight coffees a day to keep me awake. I had a poor diet and got little sleep.
All this took its toll and I was starting to realise what stress and bad health was. On one of my last exams – I’ll never forget it – I achieved a very high score, getting an A grade. On receiving my mark I broke down in tears, it meant so much to me.
Painful health problems
Over the years, the stress of looking after a young family, working long hours and intense studying, took a serious toll on my health. After a number of very serious and painful episodes, I saw several consultants and was prescribed medications, without success.
I decided to contact a naturopath (who was trained and now lectures at CNM) who treated me in a totally different way, looking at my body as a whole. Between the naturopath and a King’s College endocrinologist, who had also studied natural medicine, I was able to resolve my issue, which was histamine, genetic and panic attack-related.
A chance encounter
Then one morning a lady hailed my cab and on the journey she told me how her life had been changed by CNM. Over the next two weeks I picked up two more CNM students. I became increasingly interested and excited and felt I was being guided in a certain direction.
I decided I was still young enough to retrain and that I had so much to give. I wanted to be able to pay something back to natural medicine and help others, just as naturopathic medicine helped me.
A new kind of knowledge
I have now enrolled at CNM to become a nutritionist naturopath.
More than 11 years ago when I was out studying the knowledge and finding those 12,000 buildings, CNM at Percy Circus was actually one of them, and I remember thinking… ‘I wonder what they do there.’
