BY the time he hit his mid-30s, Martin Langley was deputy head of an Oxfordshire independent school earning £43,000 a year.

But in a dramatic twist worthy of a film script, he quit to work for next to nothing at a local cinema.

Since then, he’s forged a new career to reach assistant general manager at Jericho’s Phoenix Picturehouse.

After graduating, he taught in Cambridgeshire, before taking a year out to travel.

A chance meeting in a Kenyan bar led to a job at an international school in Nairobi and on his return to the UK, he joined a Nottingham primary school.

It was a post at independent prep school Chandlings, in Bagley Wood, Boars Hill, teaching two-to-11-year-olds, that brought him to Oxford.

“I lived in Juxton Street and came to the Phoenix Picturehouse a lot because I love films,” he explained.

Six years on, he had worked his way up to deputy head but was reconsidering his future.

“I had been teaching for 13 years and needed to decide if I wanted to carry on for another 30.”

Heading to America, he took a temporary job as a classroom teacher in a Boston school where he stayed for two years.

“My epiphany came during an eight-hour drive, when I realised I wanted to work in cinema,” he said.

Returning to the UK last summer, he used his teaching skills to help him get where he wanted to be.

“I wrote myself a school-style timetable for Monday to Friday which read ‘9-11am job hunting, 11am-1pm gym, 1-2pm lunch, 2-3pm reading and 4pm-5pm job hunting’.

“The question was ‘How am I going to get myself into a cinema?’”

He contacted the Phoenix Picturehouse and Ultimate Picture Palace in Cowley Road about volunteering but there were no vacancies.

He the called the Wallingford Corn Exchange and his luck changed.

“I’d only been in the building for 23 minutes when I was told I’d be in charge of projection that Sunday night.”

Once he had some experience, he approached Henley’s Regal Picturehouse.

“I was prepared to get down on my hands and knees and clean floors for nothing, but they offered me an usher position on minimum wage.

“Even when sweeping up the millionth piece of popcorn, I knew it would get me to where I wanted to be.”

He was promoted to duty manager, then the assistant general manager role at the Phoenix came up. “It’s strange to think that just 13 months ago, I was a teacher,” said Mr Langley, now 38.

“Last summer, I wrote: ‘I want a cool job’ and helping run a cinema like this is one of the coolest jobs ever. ”