A journalist from the Derby Evening Telegraph has told how he is embark on a new life in the Far East, by setting up an English school in Japan.

Patrick Sherriff, the paper’s assistant chief sub-editor, plans to pack his bags and make the move in May with his Japanese wife Yoshie, and their two young children.

He then hopes to cash in on the demand for English language tuition in Japan and is looking for a home in the city of Abiko, about 40 miutes from Tokyo.

He told HoldtheFrontPage: “We have two children who are five and two and we want them to be bilingual.

“They are at home but as time goes on it will be hard to keep up their Japanese.

“From a career point of view it will also be exciting to work for ourselves.”

He added: “We came up with the idea in December. My wife is not one for sitting on an idea – her philosophy, which I have bought into, is if it’s a good idea then why wait.

“It will be nice to do something different with our lives.”

Before joining the Derby Evening Telegraph two years ago, 36-year-old Patrick, who was born in Leicester, had worked for the Nottingham Evening Post and previously the Birmingham Post.

Prior to the that he had done a lot of travelling, and met his future wife in America in 1994, when he was working on his first newspaper in a “dead-end job” writing obituaries.

The couple married in 1997, three days after moving to Japan, and Patrick spent three years teaching English for tuition firm Berlitz.

He also spent time working for Japan’s leading English-language newspaper, The Daily Yomiuri, a translation of The Yomiuri Shimbun which has a circulation of 10m.

The couple have lived in England since 2000, but Patrick says a move by the Japanese government, which calls for all primary school children there to be taught English at least once a week, has presented them with an ideal opportunity.

He said: “None of the teachers speak English, so one area we might target is teaching teachers.

“And there is always a demand from business people as learning English is part of the career structure to get promoted.

“There are great possibilities, but if it we were to fall flat on our faces I would just get a job somewhere else.

“I would be no worse off. The world is a small place these days.”