A LAWYER working in the House of Commons quit the high life during his honeymoon in New Zealand to set up a health centre focusing on complementary therapy with his new wife.

Five years later and the happy couple are running a hugely successful health clinic in Portland Road, Hove.

Clinic manager Simon Fuller, 37, and wife Gaynor Roberts, both 37, have extended the premises for Tree of Life, including a new garden area, and they are staging an Open Weekend today (Saturday)and tomorrow to showcase what they have built up.

Mr Fuller said: "We met in 2010 and after eight months we decided to marry.

"At the time I was a legal advisor working in the House of Commons but I had always dreamed of owning my own business.

"Our honeymoon was three months and on New Year's Eve we were in New Zealand where I decided there and then to quit my job. It was a big decision.

"Gaynor was already working as an osteopath and naturopath so it seemed the natural thing to do."

The business started with a handful of clients in one room on The Drive, Hove, but within a year they needed bigger premises and the building in Portland Road came on the market.

Mr Fuller said: "The bank wouldn't lend us enough money because we were still a small and new business, but a group of friends helped us and we were able to move in.

"That was in 2012 and we are really proud of how the premises has developed since then.

"We now have seven treatment rooms and there are more than 1,000 one to one treatments carried out every month, alongside a wide range of weekly classes.

"There are around 100 such businesses in the city and I think we are the biggest. We also aim to be the best.

"That is an easy thing to say but I genuinely believe that we empower people to understand their own health issues.

"Our treatment rooms are rented out to therapists but we work as a team and it's room renting with a heart, a big heart."

Ms Roberts said the NHS is becoming more and more pressurised, and she believes what they do helps integrate the best of medical and complementary approaches.

She said: "Some people may have come to the end of the road with their GP about an existing ailment and they turn to us.

"We provide them with quality treatments but we are about more than that. We care, we have created a quality environment, and we really do want to make a difference to people's lives.

"I believe that we are consistent and reliable, and also at prices people can afford."