His passion for woodlands and timber began as a teenage forester on a cold hillside under the Rhinns of Kells.
Now John Paterson is returning to his Glenkens roots after a stellar career with wood products manufacturing giant Egger.
It’s quite a story, how the farmer’s son from Barskeoch near Dalry became UK forestry and wood purchasing manager with the Austrian company.
And chatting to him over a coffee in a busy Castle Douglas cafe, a certain joie de vivre shines through – which isn’t entirely surprising given that he almost died on the operating table three years ago.
Now firmly on the road to recovery, John tells me about his latest project – building a new oak-framed home at Barskeoch, a stone’s throw from the house where he grew up.
He’s moving from Brampton in Cumbria where he lives in a cruick barn, a traditional building with curving oak beams supporting the roof – a design he is replicating for his Glenkens residence.
“It was made in 1650 and is still functioning today,” he says.
“Originally I wanted to build a tower house at Barskeoch but after my health scare I scaled things back although it’s still going to be a traditional house.
“I have my own Wood Mizer portable sawmill on site and use it to cut my own stuff – I bought most of the wood from Knocknalling Estate nearby.
“From the site you can actually see the woodland where some of the timber being used in the construction comes from.
“The oak isn’t local though – it comes from France because there’s not the quality and continuity of supply in the UK.”
There’s something of the famous Welsh anthem Land of my Fathers about John’s return to his native Glenkens after so many years.
“The site was part of my dad James Paterson’s farm which was sold around 27 years ago,” he says.
“I was born and brought up at Barskeoch and am in the process of purchasing Barskeoch Wood next to the house.
“They felled the oaks there in 1970 – they were ready for cropping.
“I was only nine at the time but I can still remember the smell of that oak.
“Although I didn’t realise it at the time that smell must have planted an acorn in my mind about working with timber!”
Six years later, John recalls, came the “light-bulb moment” which determined his future career.
“I was 15 when I picked up a book in the school library on a course in forestry and that was it – I was hooked.
“From that moment I knew what I wanted to do.”
John was one of four Paterson weans along with George, Margaret and Katy, and chuckles when asked the names of his parents.
“They were Jessie and James – it always tickles me that together they make the American outlaw,” he smiles.
“Both my mum and dad were cremated and had no memorials.
“So at Barskeoch I had made a little brass plaque which will be dedicated to them, along with an oak sapling.
“The Reverend David Bartholomew is coming to do the blessing.
“It will be his last piece of work because he is retiring.”
John says he is not religious but feels a special resonance from ancient woodlands, whether in Scotland or elsewhere.
“I have been in the giant redwood forests in California,” he tells me.
“It is a very special place and being there was a very spiritual experience and made me think how the First Nation people revered these woods as something precious.
“Then all these people came in and began to chop down their forests, the woods they had only used in a totally sustainable way.
“For the First Nation people, the forest was a spiritual home and centre.”
In his youth, John himself knew something of the old ways, of taking something from nature only if it did no harm or hurt to the tree or plant.
“In spring, when I was around 14, I would drill a wee hole in a birch tree and push in a wee plastic tube to make a spigot.
“Then I would drain off some sap into a bucket then hammer a wooden peg into the hole to heal the wound so the tree would recover.
“After that I put sultanas and yeast into the liquid which through the usual process of fermentation made birch sap wine.
“It was highly sought after and I sold it to my school mates!”
Nearly half a century later John will have a fruit orchard at his new home, along with a vegetable garden.
He said: “I would like to get some of the older species of apple native to Galloway, with redcurrant and blackcurrant bushes too.
“I will have five acres of woods which have wild strawberries growing in them too.”
In his youth, John recounts, the 130-acre Barskeoch Farm had summer grazing on the hill at Fred Olsen’s Forrest Estate.
“I was not interested in livestock and never interested in the farm,” he smiles.
“I would help with the hay and cut thistles – but the only time I got to drive the tractor was cutting oats with a binder.
“I have always believed that if you want to do something then you focus on it and do it.
“So that summer, 1976, I worked my holidays up at the estate to see what working in the forest was like.
“I would hand weed between young trees and do brashing – removing the lower branches to give better access and improve the quality of the timber as it matures.
“We would be picked up at the road end at 7am and taken to our work in a long wheel-based Land Rover.
“There were 12 or 15 of us – and I was the only one who didn’t smoke.
“My mother would make my piece with bread and cheese and ham – and Shipman’s paste, which was horrible.
“I would have two flasks of tea and in the winter it would be so cold that I would use one to warm my feet.
“It was tough work and a lot of it was piece work.
“You were paid per tree for every one you planted, by the acre if you were brashing and by the chain – that’s 22 yards – if you were draining.
“I worked for three summers up there until I was 17, Easter holidays as well.
“I enjoyed it but it was brutal labour at times although a great sense of camaraderie helped.
“Even in the coldest weather the boys could roll a cigarette with one hand.
“That never ceased to amaze me!”
John has many industrial strength anecdotes about the wild men of the hills he knew – most of them unprintable – but one character sticks in his mind.
“Bob Watson was head forester on Forrest Estate and a former Commando,” he recalls.
“He had been there since the forest was first planted in 1952 and was very determined, hard and never to be messed with.
“One time one of the workers picked up a drainage shovel and went to hit Bob with it.
“Bob just looked him straight in the eye and said ‘Ye better make the first yin a guid yin, son!’
“And that was the end of that!”
Those first stints of hard labour, John explains, only strengthened his resolve to follow a career in forestry.
And after gaining a clutch of O-grades and highers he returned to Forrest Estate for three years full time as a forestry worker.
“I went to Newton Rigg College in Cumbria to study forestry for three years, with one year being an industrial placement in Argyll,” he explains.
“I was based at Lochgilphead and I loved it up there.
“I was more or less acting as a ganger and got on really well with the foresters and the head forester who liked to develop younger persons.
“But I drank far too much alcohol – actually stopped drinking completely 27 years ago.
“I was doing a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) at university and I could not afford to study and have hangovers.
“I’m now completely teetotal and don’t miss alcohol at all.”
After completing his final year at Newton Rigg with a coveted technical qualification in forestry management, John had the passport he needed to a career.
“When I applied for the course there were 1,200 applicants – and out of those, 33 people were in my year,” he tells me.
“So you were more or less guaranteed a job after college.
“In 1984 I started with Tilhill Forestry in Carlisle and covered all of southern Scotland, supervising squads during draining, planting and harvesting operations.
“I also did some landscaping contract work.
“But my heart was always in harvesting and in 1987 I saw a harvesting manager’s job advertised with Egger.
“There were a few in for it but I got it.
“It was based in Perth and I spent a few years up there managing contracts for harvesting standing timber all over Scotland.
“I was doing 80,000 miles a year in the car so my carbon footprint must have been quite big!”
After securing his MBA sponsored by Egger, John tells me, in 1999 he was promoted to harvesting operations manager for Scotland and England and relocated to Cumbria.
In 2010 a further promotion followed, this time to UK forestry and wood purchasing manager.
It was a high-powered job – and John has no idea whether that contributed to a near-fatal medical emergency in 2019.
“I had been in good health but without warning I had an aortic aneurysm which needed immediate surgery,” he recalls.
“There were a lot of complications and I was not expected to survive.
“I was three and a half months in hospital and was not interested in reading or watching the telly.
“People said you must have been bored out of your head but I wasn’t – it was just my body saying just get better.
“I was in an induced coma for two weeks and the sedatives used were pretty strong.
“Your subconscious can play tricks and when I started coming out of it, I was convinced my surgeon was from Castle Douglas – but it turned out he was from Tehran!
“I would have terrible nightmares as well about how my life was under threat.” John adds with a wry smile.
“There’s two ways of dying – either give up on life or have a lighter look at things.
“So I definitely think my sense of humour helped.”
As his journey back to full health continues, John is conscious of the debt he owes to the people who saved him.
“I have an absolute love for the NHS,” he says.
“It’s not until something like that happened that you come to realise your appreciation for the NHS system.
“My recovery has been slow and steady and for now I’ve been told to avoid rigorous exercise.”
With one foot back in Galloway, John is already contributing his expertise to local initiatives.
“I’m on the Glenkens Action Plan steering group and we have some great things happening.” he says.
“I see a vibrant community and 99 per cent of the changes are positive – the Catstrand is brilliant.
“That’s why I have no time for the criticism ‘I don’t like incomers’.
“It’s so small-minded because it doesn’t matter where people come from.
“If they are willing to contribute then they are welcome as members of the community.”
To illustrate the point, John chuckles at his own mixed genealogy.
“According to my DNA I’m part Scottish, part Irish and part Viking.
“So what I really want to know is if I have any claim on the Galloway Hoard?
“Maybe it was my ancestors who buried it!
“I only wish it had been kept in Galloway.”
Meantime, John is on track to finish his home before the winter.
Heading the project, I learn, is Frenchman Laurent Coterie of the Compagnons du Devoir et du Tour de France, a network of skilled artisans dating back to the Middle Ages.
“It took him eleven and a half years to be a master craftsman,” John says.
“Part of their code is that you have to pass on your techniques and not hold it to themselves.
“He’s on site and constantly advising the Scottish craftsmen on the best way of doing something.
“I have never witnessed such a wonderful knowledge transfer.
“Moving back to Galloway wasn’t a problem – you can work anywhere,” he adds.
“I’m public affairs manager now and don’t have to be on site, whether that’s’s Holyrood, Westminster or council offices.”
