Welch had met his friend while in Malaga, Spain, where he had set up a mobile cocktail business a year or two earlier, having always been a bit of a traveller.
After leaving Orton Longueville School (now the Nene Park Academy), he spent many summers doing bar work in Greece for Thomas Cook’s Club 18-30 and his winters back in Peterborough, staying with his parents, and picking up jobs.
Welch returned to Malaga in summer 2020 to resume his business, but then his van engine blew up.
“I had just enough money to fly back out to Sweden and see what happens,” he said.
“I thought I’d go for a few months and plant trees – foreign nationals get employed planting trees – but I landed a job working in a cocktail bar.”