Q. What is your principle professional skill?
Could you tell us a little about it?
A. Kilt making and tailoring, fifty-fifty. You could say that I am a gent’s outfitter.

Q. How long have you been practising your skill?
A. Over forty years.

Q. How did you learn your skill?
A. Well, it was handed down through the generations; probably bred into me. I started picking things up from my father and grandfather from an early age.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. I can’t think of any other business in the area that covers the spectrum of gents tailoring and kiltmaking in one business.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. Difficult one. Nothing is indispensable!
For the shooting fraternity, yes I am important as they do need bespoke garments.
I take great pride in delivery quality and personal attention – repeat orders and recommendations speak volumes.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. Well clothing has all become a bit cheap and nasty. It’s a battle against the cheap products and poorly made items available on the internet
It’s funny how in the car business expensive cars can be sold by the dozen but it’s difficult to get people to spend money on well-made clothes. We are luckier than some, living as we do in an affluent part of the world but there is still a big divide in salaries and expendable income.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. Financial pressure and quality.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. Well I suppose as long as people are prepared to work hard and pay attention to detail it will survive. I don’t think many people would be prepared to do what I do on this scale – for the financial gain. I think it’s like the village cobbler, they’re all gone now, it tends to end up with big manufacturers.
It’s hard work but I have pride in my work (third generation pride).

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. I don’t know that I would want to pass on something that is so labour intensive. Working the way I do is just too labour intensive. It’s not just the tailoring, it’s all the administration etc.

Q. How could it be achieved?
A. Apprenticeships are one way but it would just create more work and I wouldn’t be able to produce so many garments while teaching someone.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. Possibly.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. Society already does. There are colleges that teach tailoring and kiltmaking.
But being a tailor means you have to be in an affluent area where people can afford expensive attire.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. I suppose it does make me slightly critical. I see things that aren’t right. There aren’t many places that you can go to to buy a quality garment.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. I get great satisfaction and a tax bill that would fear you. I can please people. My clients are mostly extremely satisfied and that also means repeat orders and recommendations to friends and family. It is very satisfying to know that I create a garment that will be handed down.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. Not a huge impact on my work.
People coming to me are looking for a quality garment.

Q. How do you use the internet for your work?
A. Communication and banking mostly. I can communicate quicker with email.
I use a card machine in the shop now, that’s just expected in this day and age. But of course it escalates my bank costs, along with high postage charges. Email and internet banking help to reduce general expenses.

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession?
A. I dinne ken.
An extra day in the week.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. Stonemason.

Q. long have you been practising your skill?
A. Twenty years.
A craftsman is what other people call you.
Being a craftsman is a lot to do with a certain philosophy, of doing things well – you could just as easily make a bad job but it’s the choice you make to do the best you can.

Q. How did you learn your skill? How long did it take?
A. Three years training with a stonemason and then three years bricklaying.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. Yes.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. I think it’s very important.
There is still demand because of the old houses.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. I would say it’s devolving. There is more interest in numbers, with bricklaying and block laying. It’s more methodical and people are more interested in that kind of building.
Building a wall for example isn’t quantifiable, it’s a more intuitive way of working. It is appreciated but there is less of it. A brick layer not interested in laying stone – it’s quicker to work with bricks or blocks. It’s a different way of working.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. I think the job remains the same, I‘m just getting older.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. Tiring.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. I think it is very important.

Q. How could that be achieved?
A. Apprenticeships, but that’s difficult to do if you are working on your own.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. Probably not as it ties you up. I work on my own and I would have to be working in a different way if had an apprentice. You would still have to make a profit somehow which would be difficult to manage as a lot of my work is weather dependent.
It’s not something you could take on half-heartedly, you would want to be able to do a good job of it.
I do think that there must be pride in seeing work well done by someone that you have taught.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. Oh yes.
Japanese have a system where craftspeople are amongst the most highly revered in society.
Part of the problem is that it’s all part of competitive market; a bad tradesman can still charge as much as a good craftsman.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. I’ve always had a skill so I find that difficult to answer.
I can see that because I have a craft my quality of life is much better and I can use my skill to work and live wherever I like.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. Monetary, it’s just making a living but I do get satisfaction. I think everyone who does things well does get rewarded by public approval.
People do appreciate what you’ve done.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. None.

Q. How do you use the internet for your work?
A. Sometimes order tools.

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession?
A. Help for training and apprenticeships and learning on the job would go a long way.
If it’s a dying trade should be more assistance. You need training and experience to be able to work efficiently and with skill.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. Well my job’s changed slightly from what it used to be I used to be a workshop joiner in bespoke joining. Now I’m workshop manager, I spend half of my time pricing jobs and going and meeting clients. Today I ended up half the day in the workshop. I’m probably about 50-50; half the time I’m up in the office half the time I’m down here.

Q. Could you tell us a little about it?
A. It’s not like a production line when you get the machines setup, where everything is just put in one end and comes out ready to go the other side. It’s not like that. It’s a lot of hands on joinery here. A lot of thought goes into it. There’s no two things the same. It’s all bespoke … and never the same way as these big factories with their computerised machinery – everything 600mm, 700mm, 800mm, they go up in hundreds whereas we cater for the sizes in between.

Q. How long have you been practising your skill?
A. I’ve been working in the bespoke joinery trade for 25 years.
I was at Banchory Academy and my father was working at a company at Drumoak. So, it was either stay on at school or do an apprenticeship. In my … era that was the thing you did, you either went to college, stayed on at school or you went and did an apprenticeship.  So I just went and worked with my father. I was always interested in joinery and woodwork, I was good at it at school as well and technical drawing … so I went down that route.

Q. In terms of new people coming up through and learning skills – do you take apprentices on?
A. Yes we had two apprentices. Doug is one of them. He just did his skills test last week and he passed … so he’s now qualified.

Q. How long did that take him?
A. Four years … He’s coming on fine. We had another guy who went through his skills test last year and he’s decided to have time out and went to Australia. So he’s taken a year’s visa and gone to Australia. His job’s still here if he comes back.

Q. Can you envisage what it might be like a few years down the line?
A. There’s always going to be people renovating the old buildings… you’ll get clients that will come in and they don’t want … standard things, everybody’s got the same windows, they want something a wee bit different.

Q. Do you think people appreciate what you’re doing here?
A. I would say, like Alistair , my boss, he loves this side of it… he’s doing this renovation over here … and it’s all new houses/ new builds and all we’re doing at the moment is the staircases, so what he’ll often do is take clients into the work shop even if they’re only getting the staircases made. He loves to show people round, and a lot of people are impressed by the stuff we do.  So I think on the whole people do respect what we do and admire it.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. The best reward is the clients being chuffed with the job you did … being appreciative of what you’ve done.

Q. What impact has broadband and the Internet had on your work – do you use it?
A. Oh yes, all the time. Emails every day. It usually starts with me going to meet the client and discussing what they want, then very often you can confirm things and change details and it’s all done through the Internet.

Q. How do people usually find you?
A. Me, my father and Phil are very well known in Deeside. We’ve all been with different firms … There’s only a certain amount of bespoke workshop joiners in Deeside. Alistair never has to advertise for workshop work. It’s all come through local joiners, local contractors, clients that have had a job done and their neighbors spotted it.

Q. Have you got a web page?
A. Yes, type in AJC Scotland…You’ve got AJC homes and AJC construction, which is the workshop side.

Q. What was your favourite job?
A. My favorite job, well I’m pretty much a stair maker that’s what I did at Banchory Contractors. For three or four years I did nothing else but stairs and every now and again you get a really nice staircase. I did a circular one here, which was one of my favourite jobs.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. Horologist.

Q. Can you tell us a little about it?
A. The repair and restoration of mechanical clock movements and cases.

Q. How long have you been practising your skill?
A. About 30 years.

Q. How did you learn your skill?
It started as a hobby when I was a young man. Then I went on a training course to improve my knowledge. One thing led to another and I found myself working for an established horologist, in a workshop with other more experienced repairers from whom I gained a great deal of knowledge. After that period I set up my own business and my experience grew “on the job”. The first year was hard but by the second year all the basic skills were well honed and I had mastered the art of running a small business. There are other skills within the trade, such as dial restorers, cabinet makers, specialist wheel and pinion cutters etc. These are the people that one often meets at clock and watch fairs and often prove to be useful contacts when part of a job would benefit from their specialist skills.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. Yes, but not many.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. Very important. There are many lovely old clocks in the area and they are always going to need repairing and maintaining.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. I don’t think that it has changed a great deal in the way that I work. Much of the job is done with hand tools that are the same as those used decades ago. After all, the clocks that I am working on have not changed, they have also been around for decades. What has changed is the way that society is moving away from mechanical clocks to the modern throw-away quartz clock. Clock repairing is one of the oldest engineering trades that still exists in modern times. There are very few young people coming into the trade and as the old clock repairers pass away the numbers become steadily depleted. Not surprising really as it would be difficult in modern times for a young man with a family to make a decent living in this trade.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. There is little difference. My workshop looks the same, although I am now living in a different area of the UK. I still use some of the same tools that I first bought when clocks were just my hobby.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. I anticipate that there will always be some work but it will probably diminish over the coming years.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. I think it is very important to pass on practical skills.

Q. How could that be achieved?
A. Maybe a bursary system or by sponsorship.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. As a small one-man business I can’t afford to do that. My skill is very labour intensive so I could not take time out to teach a trainee, nor could I afford to pay someone who would not be creating income to the business. There is only one place now in the UK where horology is taught, it is very good but very expensive.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. Yes, there will always be a requirement for these skills whilst mechanical movements still exist. For example, in World War 2, the military suddenly realized that they needed mechanical timers for bombs and there were insufficient clock makers to cope with the demand. There are a lot of skills and trades which once lost cannot be regained.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. Yes, I believe that every school child should have the opportunity to work with their hands and make things in metal or wood etc. to get the feel of using tools. Not every child is inclined towards academic subjects, some would benefit far more from being taught practical skills to enable them to go into business for themselves, perhaps as a plumber, joiner or blacksmith. Or, perhaps as a clock repairer!

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. I get the satisfaction of seeing something restored to working order. It is quite a challenge sometimes when a customer passes me a box of bits that they have found in granny’s attic, but it’s a joy when eventually the beloved family heirloom is restored to its former glory. And of course I get paid for my work which is what makes the world go round!

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. Broadband and the internet has meant that customers can search for a repairer in their area, send an e-mail to me when they find my website and get a prompt reply. If I need a picture of their clock to answer a query, it can be with me within minutes. So much quicker than post, or any other method. I can also buy components very quickly online and view auction catalogues etc. I find the internet very useful.

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession?
A. People should understand that if they want their clocks repaired they need to be prepared to pay a fair price for the time and skill that goes into doing the job. The only way to guarantee that your local repairer will be there when you need him is to use his services. Like the old saying goes “Use it, or lose it!”

Q. What inspired you to learn the skills you’ve got today?
A. Well initially it was through drawing that I started. I’ve always been interested in things theatrical and very much to do with popular arts. A lot of the subject matter I used in my drawings going way back 30/40 years have related … to things like fairgrounds, circus, theatre, musical.
I don’t know where this stemmed from because I wasn’t exposed to that much in the way of theatre, theatrical experience or cinema …  being from Peterhead, but I always wanted to use my drawings, first out as a vehicle to show my interest in and enthusiasm for that type of thing, then it seemed like quite a natural development to go into the three dimensional side of it…and I felt that drawings translated quite easily into the three dimensional.  … I also loved the type of carving you come across in churches and grave yards and that sort of thing as well.

Q. How did you learn your skill?
A. Well basic skills also came from the fact I’m an engineer. After leaving school, much to my disappointment, I wasn’t deemed as being art school material at school because I didn’t have the academic requirements. Luckily, as it turned out, I was then told I could go ahead and do an engineering apprenticeship… I quickly grew aware that this was going to be a useful thing to have in my life.
Determined that I was …  to go to art school anyway… I used this as a sort of stepping stone acquiring the academic qualifications. I did then go ahead and to art school and I’ve found the combination of the skills that I learned in the four years I served my time as an engineer helped greatly.

Q. Could you tell us a little about your time as an engineering apprentice?
A. It was a very interesting time. I mean, I was in despair for a start due to being quite immature I suppose and not really realising the benefits that this was going to offer me … but I got a job in  the Cross and Blackwells food factory, in Peterhead. It was a canning factory, which was one of the main industries in Peterhead at the time, as it turned out it was a terrific social experience because a lot of the people that were there were just so interesting and colorful and pretty marvelous when I look back on it thinking in terms of life in general …

Q. Was Peterhead thriving then?
A. Absolutely, very much at the peak of the post war boom. The fishing industry was doing extremely well. My dad was working in one of the factories that had been built there, like an engineering factory … although Peterhead was a smaller place then and there was no oil influence whatsoever there did seem to be a real buzz about the place. There was a lot of local pride about the place as well you know it had a real sort of reputation Peterhead for being a hard working, hard drinking area. So there were a lot of pretty tough people there but pretty good, hardworking ethic.

Q. How much do you feel the skills you’ve acquired over the years, with the training in engineering and art ,give you the freedom to express yourself?
A. They’ve definately reinforced the freedom, the skills that I’ve got, as regards to the procedural way about how you work out a plan.

Q. Do you think skills are essential to put your ideas into practice?
A. For me yes, skills habits knowledge of materials that sort of thing, I think that’s just something that comes with time, I suppose it’s getting back to the definition of what a skill really is is just a knowing about the materials and tools and being able to express in a most efficient a way as possible anything that your want to do I suppose. I’m up against difficulties and barriers and that which you’ve got to somehow get through it’s never easy.. in fact so difficult at times that I feel I never want to do some of these things again.

Q. What is the role of duration and repetition when learning a skill?
A. … You don’t know what people’s abilities or inabilities are, this is the problem…  With all the best will in the world you want to be able to help them and the only thing you can say is, look. here, just try working away at this, and you give them a bit of wood. I just … say to them look, this is going to take a while. It’s not going to be an immediate result … you’ve really got to work at it.
It it might be the case that somebody is just naturally adapted with working with that type of thing.
The only way that it can be found out is to try …

Q. Do you enjoy teaching people?
A. Yes, I do. it can be an incredibly rewarding thing. … I enjoyed the college experience I had teaching there, it was great, but it was quite structured.
Further education was a bridge between school and what they eventually wanted to do so they knew that if they did what I asked them that they would be rewarded at the end of the day by being able to go to art school and as such they were only too keen, so that was quite a good working experience I had.
But working on a one to one basis again that depends on the relationship you have with the individual.

Q. Would you say that wood carving is now your major skill, it it something that you are a master craftsman in?
A. No, I’ve still got a lot to learn, a massive amount to learn and thats why its good for me to keep an open mind with regards who I work for, and what I do because it’s where you get the variety.

Q. How would you describe you principal professional skill?
A. I came into the quarrying industry as a lab technician and I learned all about the materials that quarries produced and I moved into management probably about 30 years ago. So I suppose my main skill really is to look after the rock faces. The blasters come in and we discuss how they’re going to place the shots.
I would say I have to have quite a wide variety of skills; engineering, the materials themselves, the transportation of materials, so I would say quite a wide scope.

Q. When you say looking after the rock faces, what does that mean?
A. Blasting to keep the rock faces still in a safe condition. You can blast faces the wrong way believe it or not. It may look like the guys just put holes and just fire down shots but they don’t. It’s keeping the faces safe after you’ve fired them and planning ahead for road access. If you’ve got stones hanging off the top it’s dangerous for the diggers down below, so the faces have got to be blasted in the correct direction.

Q. And how long have you been here?
A. 17 years.

Q. And how long has Breeden Agrigates been here?
A. The history of the quarry… you’ve got me there! We’ve been quarrying commercially since about the early 1900’s.

There used to be about 40 people that worked in the quarry here and now I think were down to about 8. I mean it was very labour intensive before we had bigger machines. We used to have dumpers around here, we don’t have dumpers anymore, It all goes out on conveyor belts.

Q. And how did you learn your skill originally?
A. I was in the lab and I learnt all about the materials in the lab, that’s where I started off. I was there for 5 years; then into management. I worked my way around drilling and blasting, I’ve done dumper driving, and I’ve operated all the machinery.

Q. And do you think its helped doing all those different things?
A. Yes, very much so. There’s no way you can pull the wool over my eyes!

Q. And how do you think things of changed here since you first came?
A. I think modernisation and increasing the size of the machinery. The new machinery is far more efficient than what we had. Hydraulics for a start, I mean a hydraulic machine compared to an old-time machine … hydraulics is probably the biggest improvement.

Q. And young people, do you have apprenticeships here?
A. Not really because we’ve got a 17 years old minimum age to take people in. We’re pretty cut to the bone with people as it is. We do what they call the new apprenticeship schemes, which is what would be your NVQs. We’ve all done NVQs, it’s a government initiative to do that now. It’s good because all the guys get their certificates. We don’t bring a lot of young people into quarries; it’s a shame really.

Q. How do you develop what you do?
A. We’ve got a technical department and a research and development department as well that do all sorts of special products now, especially on the asphalt and concrete side. The asphalt now is using ground up rubber. Polymers go into some of these materials now to make them better lasting. The concretes have got things like fibers. They used to use a lot of steel mesh in the concrete now they use little things that are like plastic fibers, little strips they put in and that give it strength. The concrete side it getting very, very technical.

Q. How has the Internet and broadband changed what you do? Do you use it?
A. We used broadband Internet everyday.

Q. Is that for communication or ordering?
A. Yes, communication and ordering that’s all we use it for really. Oh, and sourcing parts as well.

Q. Your job here and the skills that you have, do they change the way you see the world?
A. I think so, yes. Not so much the skills but when you see the materials you wonder what they’re going to be used for. As you go round the world you see concrete the same as ours. You drive round quite a lot of America and you see quarries and you think, ‘Wow!’. I am interested in quarries all the time.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. Head Cooper, I repair casks for whisky industry.

Q. How did you learn your skill?
A, I learned my craft at Glenfiddich Distillery.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. Yes there are three other cooperages in the area.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. I think it’s very important.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. Technology has crept in.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. Hoop drivers, rivet banks and rejuvenation. We now have hydraulic hoop drivers instead of manually hammering hoops tight, and again hydraulic machinery to rivet hoops, and when the hoops become to slack we need to remove old rivets and make the hoops smaller, this is all done by hydraulic presses.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. Very important the way whisky sales are going.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. It’s very important for whisky industry to keep craft alive.

Q. How could that be achieved?
A. By teaching more apprentices.

Q.  Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. Yes, I am already teaching two people.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. Yes

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession.
a. The Coopers Federation and Employers are trying hard to promote the craft by taking on apprentices  but due to the nature of the job, hard work etc it is quite difficult to keep people in the trade.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. I get job satisfaction.

Q. What is your principle professional skill? Could you tell us a little about it?
A. I served a four year apprenticeship in marine fitting at Hall Russell ship builders in Aberdeen and furthered my career in maintenance.

Q. How long have you been practising your skill? How did you learn your skill? How long did it take?
A. I started in the quarry industry 19th July 1993 as maintenance fitter and after twelve years got the chance to manage one of our smaller units in Edzell .This presented a change to more office and computer based skills as well as learning up on the considerable amount of legislation involved in our business. After seven years in this role the opportunity arose to manage Craigenlow, which is another challenge to relish.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?.
A. One of the biggest changes in the last twenty years is the use of computers and computer technology to run the plant as well as the administration of the company.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. One of the most satisfying parts of the job is getting the opportunity to pass on the various different skills I have learnt over the years. That must mean I’m getting old!

Q. How long have you been working in this profession?
A. Since 1966

Q. And how did you learn your skills originally?
A. I started off as a stonemason. The apprenticeship was then for four years not three like it is now… prior to that it was five years … Within two years I was in the drawing office then from the drawing office into management of sorts and then at the ripe old age of 21 I came back in as the manager of the stone business …

Q. How would say the nature of the business has changed over the years; the things you make and the tools you use?
A. Fyfe has always had a great cross section of working with memorials. Kitchen work, that’s relatively new, within the last ten years but memorials have been around for a couple of hundred years. Prior to that it was always bridges, engineering work and architectural work, that was Fyfe’s forte and that hasn’t really changed. The only thing that has changed is the machines that are processing it. The big changes … took place probably late 50’s when sawing techniques changed and got a little bit better with wire saws.
At that time old gang saws were still around chugging away but wire saws came on the scene and then the real big change probably in the mid to late 70’s with the introduction of diamonds – industrial diamonds of course, and things like the 3m block saw which just changed things massively. .

Q. Were the old saws made out of metal?
Yes, steel blade. Now The big frame saws, the three meter block saw, has diamond, industrial diamond, the wire is diamond but in the 60’s the wire was just a high tensile wire.
I think the next big move in the last ten years are those machines in there that are CNC operated; where there’s a little PC that controls its operations,

Q. Do you train people?
A. Yes, an apprenticeship is three years. We give them a good cross section of training because to work with stone will take you three years; there is no easy way around learning to work with stone.
Machines help a lot to cut to size but those L-shaped units you saw at the factory and that finish that’s on that face, you don’t get to do that within a few months, it takes three years and even then there’s good masons and not so good masons.
Most of them do it for the love of it, it’s rewarding because we’ve got guys down in the workshop there that would earn more money doing other things other than stone masonry.

Q. Do they specialise?
A. Sort of, a trainee will drift away from masonry and concentrate on one thing.  We’ve got the hand polishers, again we give them a little bit of training in hand polishing but the tools they have today make it ever so much easier to polish than in the old days….today its much easier with the diamond tools… But again it’s down to the love of it because we’ve got a couple of lads in there that just love polishing stone, ‘Don’t give me masonry, don’t give me sand blasting don’t give me machines, I just want to be polishing.’

Q. That’s great, have they been doing it for a while?
A. Yes. We’re a little bit age heavy down there just now because the young lads we’ve been training … they usually make the three years, then its bye bye.

Q. Oil Industry?
A. Oil Industry takes them away. Or oil related industry.

Q. I’ve heard that said before, that young men having that cross section of skills, are really valuable in the oil industry.
A. Absolutely yes.

Q. So the young apprentices are still being trained with all the basic skills?
A. We still frighten a poor apprentice stone mason by giving them a lump of stone and telling them we want a flat face, ‘You’ve got to make the face flat and the only way to do it is by hand’, the way they did a few thousand years ago.  And that gives you the skill to be able to work with a hammer and chisels.

Q. So they’re still learning those fundamental skills?
A. We still try and introduce that because its so important. Absolutely, so important. But it no half upsets a lot of the young lads that come through the college with the idea that everything to day is ‘press button’ and computers.

Q.  How do you think you can keep apprentices from not disappearing to the oil industry?
A. I think that’s just Aberdeenshire… it’s probably me because I’ve come from the old school where we were given that sort of basic training to begin with.
You might have a different outcome if you said to a young lad that had just come from school,. ‘We want to teach you how to work that polishing machine. It works with windows XP. It comes up on the screen you feed in all that information then you sit back and watch it or you go and do something else’. If we did that to begin with we might have different results. But rightly or wrongly we believe in telling them, ‘This is what its all about, this is the trade you’re about to join’.
One of the great successes I’ve had over the years in the work place is when we’ve had apprentices, they’ve worked with us; they’ve left us and they’ve set up their own businesses as stone masons and some of them are very successful stone masons. So that’s good. It’s not all bad news.

Q. Has the Internet has affected the business of the years?
A. Right, if you wound the clock 15 years ago I would have said, ‘what Internet, www what?’. Now, everything that happens in this office is so reliant on the computer. I was doing everything by fax, that’s all gone now, even our phone systems; if we don’t have a desktop switched on upstairs the phones don’t work!

Q. Do you get much business through the Internet?
A. No, we have a website of sorts, we get a little bit from that, but most of our business is generated by architects and contractors that know us and from retail stone masons selling memorials to the public.

What are the greatest pleasures you take from what you do?
Making money! Keeping my wife happy! If I was to switch on my company hat, it’s got to be customer satisfaction: 100%. And we do a lot to try and make sure that we get it right first time.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. Ceramics

Q. Could you tell us a little about it?
A. I work with Raku and smoke fired ceramics. Also wood fired earthenware, for which I have built a kiln, but the ceramics is still very much in the developing phase.

Q. How long have you been practising your skill?
A. For 35 years.

Q. How did you learn your skill? How long did it take?
A. One semester of throwing skills. One year in Carl Malmstens School of Arts and Crafts. 20 years of teaching evening classes and Art school ceramics departments.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. Yes, about three people.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. I think it is very important. I like to think it makes a difference that I can show my skills and therefore show that the same material can be used in a different way. Create an opportunity for dialogue.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. Not sure. I think it is us people who change.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. Again, us people.
I am torn between views. I come from Sweden were my skill is highly regarded in society and we don’t have so many opportunities to be educated. We have only three universities, which means it is very difficult to access them. We have Folkhögskola which is adult learning for people who want to change career later in life (brilliant) and a number of free schools like the one I attended.
Then I moved to Britain who have far to many universities with ceramics departments churning out people with average levels of knowledge.
Having said that, Scotland Has NONE as far as I know!
I am also struggling with the British culture of being terrified of constructive criticism and any kind of judgements. I won’t go further, it would take a whole day!

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. I guess I think it will always be there. It always have been.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. Extremely important!

Q.. How could that be achieved?
A. By having an apprentice scheme. There is one in England called Adopt a Potter which takes in two-three apprentices each year. Not much use. It is also for students who already have an education.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. I am already doing that. I have a student coming to my workshop two days a week.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. Yes!

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world.
A. Yes.

Q.  What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. Great satisfaction!

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. Because I live rural it has a great impact. It would be hard to find time to travel around with pots to galleries.

Q. How do you use the internet for your work?
A. Contact with galleries, other ceramicists and things like this.

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession.
A. That is a subject for a workshop.

Q. How did you learn to do this sort of work?
I did woodwork at school and made myself a bit unusual because I went to Robert Gordon’s in Aberdeen and really it that was sport was more important and I hated sport.

Q. But they had a good woodwork department?
A. Pretty good yes, but you got a chance to make things and learn, I found it fascinating. I did drawing – engineering drawing and that was allied to making things, you know.

Q. So then what did you go to do afterwards?
A. Oh many things, I went to sea, worked on farms, traveled for about seven years, round Europe, North Africa, all over the place, then I did architecture … and then had to make a living because I was married by that time and the children were coming along so I did what I found easiest which was making furniture, restoring furniture, I love restoring furniture and now I’m into antique tools and stuff like that. So I teach antique tools at the evening classes by stealth, because that isn’t what they’re coming for, they’re coming to learn how to make things . I only teach hand methods: sawing, chiseling and I think quite honestly that’s more appropriate to what most people need … I just think not enough people know how to make things by hand and don’t have the confidence to proceed – if they want a coffee table, why not make it? It seems obvious.

Q. So when you say teaching are you teaching people to come and work for you?
No, evening classes. Yeah, it’s getting more popular but really I’ve been doing it for about twelve years now and I concentrate quite a lot of my effort on that and it’s quite a nice way of doing things because I see myself as a bit of an artist you see, a creative person, but I’m not really that fussed in doing – in producing anything specific -  but I can do that through other people. I enjoy that because they say ‘I want to make a book case but I want it to be out of different wood’ and I’ll help them to do it, then I’ll help them to make it. So in a way I’m doing it at second hand. So that’s nice.

Q. Presumably they get a satisfaction out of making something well?
A. Yes, some people do and some people just enjoy coming here…
I’ve written all this down I’ve got 25 kits, I’ve got manuals on how to make things, I’ve got methods of doing Dovetails, I’ve got methods for Mortis and Tenon and by and large people follow them…

Q. And the people that are actually working in the mill – can you tell us more about them?
A. A few of them I took on years ago, but I handed over to Graham Winram… about ten years ago I think. So he employs them. They make mainly kitchens, and anything else that crops up, with machinery by and large.

Q. Where  do you get the wood from?
A. Well, that’s another thing I like to use local wood, so this for example, the back of this chest of drawers this is weeds, they were elms growing at the side of the river and we cut them down because they were in the way, and I thought well, there not what we usually like to use but well cut them up into planks and quite honestly it looks fantastic.
What we’ve done there is broken away from convention again because convention says that when your making money out of timber you’d buy stuff that’s like 14” / 15” diameter and they you cut it up into planks, this stuff was only about 10” or 12” but because I don’t care, I don’t have to make money out of it and I’m quite interested in how things are going to look, we’ve don’t that and it’s been very popular, the trees are gone now but it’s all into peoples furniture.

Q. I was just thinking about people coming to the classes and why is it that they come because, as you point out, they can actually go to Ikea and buy cheap tables. We’ve been talking about people living in rural Scotland, and it’s quite isolated, so it’s really important to have the opportunity to talk to people and if you can do that whilst your making something satisfying as well then I can see that that’s a really important social function, it’s a really great thing to be providing.

So do you think society or the government or the council should be taking a bit more care to be preserving these sort of opportunities or skills or training? Any ideas how they might do that?

A. I don’t know how they ever would to be honest. I can’t see what would happen to change that and I’m getting to a stage where I haven’t go the energy to even try and do it. But I do think there is a moment now afoot, I’ve got a lady here now that does recycling – Nina – now she does that and I think there is a movement afoot maybe, it’s just too late for me but where people are getting more interested in small scale stuff like that were people are not just throwing stuff out automatically and just taking pleasure from simple things that were made a few years ago, all that kind of thing is good stuff.

Q. And what are your rewards in what you do? What pleasure do you get from what you do?

A. I just love doing it and I won’t be stopping, although the time is getting very close when I could stop, but I’m not going to stop … I’ve got web sites, I’ve got something like half a million hits on You Tube… I get very little actual feedback from it and I have put in my email address but half a million hits is pretty good.

Q. Whats the video of?
A.There are twenty videos of me making furniture.

Q. So people can do it themselves?
A. Yes.

Q. How has the internet changed what you do or how do you use it?
A. The Internet, I use it a lot. I buy my old tools for example on Ebay and that’s a very good way of filling in the gaps of any collection. This is a whole collection, all this stuff here, a company called Mathieson & Son Glasgow who were the biggest tool makers in the world at one stage and so that means there’s quite a lot of their stuff around so I collect them and a few other makers as well – Aberdeen makers – could speak about them, at length!

Q. And you’ve uploaded your films, the educational films?
A. Yes, and I think – well you know maybe when the Internet started I thought this is wonderful this is going to be a way of popularising what I do. But it never actually made an awful lot of difference, although a lot of people say, if I say ‘how did you hear about my evening classes?’ they say, ‘we went on-line and you’re the only person doing it’, possibly in Scotland just about.

Q. How does the Internet help? A lot but not enough.
A. I had a lady working for me for years who’s a marketing person who was working for a few people, but I think she just can make more money working for a company and I miss her because she was good. She came in for a morning a week but just to sort of keep the thing afloat. So it isn’t a forty-hour a week job.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. I have a farming background but I am a Water Engineer to trade. I have been a bee keeper since I was about 17 years old.

A. Can you tell us a little about the bee keeping?
It’s very complex. The two most important things are to look after the bees and be kind to them. You have to treat bees for the insecticides that they are exposed to from gardens and the veroe mite. The hive is the most industrious factory in the world. I had 200 hundred hives a few years ago, now I only have eight. One season we produced 7,000 lbs of honey which we packed into jars by hand. It’s very labour intensive.

Q. How long have you been practicing your skill?
A. I started when I was 17 or 18 years old. I have been interested in bees ever since, fascinated by them. Also my wife was interested in them and we worked together.

Q. How did you learn your skill?
A. I was taught by my grandfather. My grandfather and my great-grandfather, they were all bee keepers. I have never been on a bee keeping course. In those days it was part of your living. Every cottage had hives, it was a way of life. You had to do it for work.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. Not as many as there used to be. I know of a chap in Crathie and one in Banchory.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. Very, very important. Bees are vital for the pollination of all sorts of flowers, vegetables, fruits. Honey as a medication is very important. It is something that a lot of people used to get a good living from.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. Quite a lot. My style of beekeeping and people of my age group, it’s completely different from the modern beekeeper. The modern beekeeper has learned from books or classes and they’re never out of the hive. We learned to let the bees look after themselves and that way they produce far more honey.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. Looks to be pretty bleak if things stay as we are. In the last 20 years we’ve lost 80 percent of the bees in the Dee Valley. If I was a young man again that’s what I would do, have hundreds of hives. Bees are vital.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. Ultra important. But people are not interested, they don’t need to keep bees for money.

Q. How could  that be achieved?
A. To have a bee keeping group in every village, like there is in Tarland. There are so few keepers now, it’s not handed down from father to son.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. Yes, if someone was keen I would train them. I’m one of the teachers at the bee keeping group in Tarland.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. Without a doubt. It is really important.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. It does actually. It is a nice environment working with bees. There is no pressure and I find it very relaxing.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. I love doing it. Weekends spent with the bees is very rewarding. There is no money in it.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. It’s quite good for supplies for bee equipment. Unfortunately there is only one main supplier in Scotland so the internet is useful.

Q. How do you use the internet for your work?
A. Ordering supplies, jars, etc.

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession
A. If education took it up to get it going again. There is no financial gain.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. Meal Miller at Montgarrie Mill, Alford

Q. Can you tell us a little about it?
A. In milling the oats a lot of the skills I use at the mill go back at least until Roman times and probably even before that. There have been a few changes over the years, mainly during the industrial revolution. We have three sets of millstones which split the work into different processes, making cleaner oatmeal. Older mills would have normally only had one set. The invention of the endless belt cup elevator in the nineteenth century did away with the need for so much manual labour and speeded up the process.

Q. How long have you been practising your skill?
A.  Nine and a half years.

Q. How did you learn your skill?
A. I’m self-taught, learning on the job at the mill.

Q. How long did it take?
A. About 5 years until I was fully comfortable with it, although I find I’m still learning new things from time to time.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. Not in the traditional way, as far as I know.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. I think it is quite important. Oatmeal has a strong tradition in Scottish cuisine and it stayed on in Aberdeenshire when other regions gave it up for other foodstuffs. Some Aberdeenshire farm workers were still paid with oatmeal up until the 1950s.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. Not much. Going back say 70 years electricity was introduced.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. It’s still much the same.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. Quite good. Mainly because this is the only place that does the oatmeal in this way, probably in the whole world. There used to be 40,000 water mills in the UK, now we are the only place milling oatmeal in this way on a commercial scale. We are also starting to make porridge oats and jumbo oat flakes which has a much bigger market.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. Very important.

Q. How could that be achieved?
A. By training people. We are currently training John who is a Dryster, which is another skill in itself.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. Yes I am doing, informally.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. Not obliged, but it would be nice if they could. People have to be interested in a skill in order for it to be preserved.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. Yes I think so. I started taking an interest in other places like this, in this area of history.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. I like working when the mill is running well in the knowledge that it has been running in the same way for 140 years.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. The mill has a website and people can buy oatmeal online. The oatmeal is shipped all over the British Isles and North America.

Q. How do you use the internet for your work?
A. To learn how to improve my skills. For example, not long after I started working here the millstones needed to be dressed and I hadn’t a clue how it was done. I learned how to do it from a website made by an American chap.

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help preserve your skills and support your profession?
A. To continue to market the oatmeal so that the mill still has an income.

Q. How would you describe what you do?
A. I am a dressmaker so I do a lot of bridal work, ball gowns, prom dresses, that sort of thing. Mainly for girls that can’t find what they’re looking for in the shops.

Q. So do you have to make made to measure patterns?
A. Yes, I’ve got patterns that I work as a block and take the measurements and really it goes from there. I make up a calico mock up in cotton first, the girl comes and tries that on and that’s the point shell say I want this or that changed. I fit that, then that becomes my pattern that I use for the fabric.

Q. So you could make more than one based on the same calico?
A. Yes

Q. How long have you been doing this?
A. I’ve been working for myself here since 2007 but really when the kids were little I was dress making and doing alterations and things; so really for years.

Q. And how did you learn to do what you do?
A. It’s one of those things that I did when I was little. I remember being really little and my granny giving me a needle and thread and an old nightie and I cut it up and made a cat and stuffed it. Then when I was  probably about ten or eleven years old, the dress I really liked was too little so I cut the top off and made a skirt with the bottom bit. So really it was something that I did when I was really little.
I loved sewing at school. I got my ‘O’ level in sewing and I was the only person in 3rd and 4th year doing the class. Then there was a drapers shop in Aboyne and the wifie, she made bridal wear, so I worked part time with her and then I worked for a dress maker in Torphins. It was really good, I learnt quite a lot from her but it’s not really the kind of thing that you could go to college and learn, it’s something you learn over years.

Q. Do you think there is a certain skill you can learn or do you think it’s just in you, to be able to visualise something in 3D when you’re making the patterns?
A. Yes, because I can see things, but you try and explain to somebody how it’s going to look and it’s really difficult because they can’t see it, but I can. And it gets really difficult, so you’ve got to draw it so they know what you want to do. That’s where the calico’s good because they can try it on and get to see what’s happening and then sometimes they’ve got an idea in their head and when they actually try it on its actually not what they want after all, so we can change it.

Q. How has your work changed over the years?
A. What I have noticed is that years ago, people used to think that because it was home made you would get it cheaper, where now they’re actually coming because they want something that’s a one off and they expect to pay a bit more because it’s a one off. It’s made to measure and it’s designed for them. That would be the biggest change.

Q. So how long does the process take from somebody coming to you?
A. If its for a wedding, like bridesmaids, they could come a year before, so by the time they discuss what they want, choose the fabrics, work on the calicos it could be a process that takes ten months to a year. I don’t like finishing everything too early, in case their weight changes but if it’s somebody that wants a ball gown you might only have three weeks, so it just depends what they want.

Q. Where do you source your materials?
A. Just companies that I’ve got samples from. If they’re looking for something specific then they can phone up other companies or look on the internet where you can find an awful lot more.

Q. Do you use the Internet?
A. Yes, I use the Internet a lot for fabrics, just because there’s nothing in Aberdeen.

Q. And have you got a web page?
A. I do yes, just a basic page at the moment with some photographs and some information.
I’ve had contacts through Facebook as well. I’m on Facebook, although its not really a business page. My son’s going to set up a business page for me.

Q. And what about word of mouth?
A. Yes, that’s the biggest. Most of my customers come through somebody else.

Q. And you made the curtains up at The MacRobert Hall in Tarland, so do make that sort of thing as well?
A. Yes I do, just purely when you start out it was a case of you need to survive but before I worked on  my own I worked for a curtain place in Banchory, so I still do curtains for people, especially friends, I do a lot for them.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your job?
A. I just love doing it! You do get days when nothing’s going right but when you’ve got a girl that comes in, whether it’s a prom dress, wedding dress or bridesmaid dress, they come in with a picture or an idea and at the end you’ve made that for them and they’re standing in their dress and they’re just beaming. They’ll send you a photograph and send you a really nice letter saying ‘thank you so much’. So that and the fact that I just really enjoy it, I enjoy making something.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
Could you tell us a little about it?
A. I’m a sculptor in metal. I have two skills in one really; one skill as an artist and one skill as a metal worker. The total of what I do is a combination of both.

Q. How long have you been practising your skill?
A. Since leaving Art College, so that’s thirty six years.

Q. How did you learn your skill? How long did it take?
A. That’s a tricky one for an artist to answer. Is it about welding or art? I went to art school to develop art skills and I was introduced to welding. The rest I’ve learnt as I’ve gone along all the rest of my life.
When I left school I was told that the apprenticeship to be a professional artist is at least sixteen years long and I would agree with that.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. No, there are other sculptors but no one who does what I do.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. I think it is important because I’m well known. It doesn’t do the region any harm to have a few established, professional artists.

Q. How has your situation evolved over the last few decades?
A. I’ve become more and more confident and developed a reputation and I suppose I have earned a proper living for quite a number of years now but it took long time to happen.

Earning better money means that you can have better facilities, a better studio, better equipment and more time. Being more well-known means you exhibit with better galleries and get more commissions

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. When I started I was optimistic that being an artist could be my sole occupation but as that is very rare I wasn’t convinced that it would be. I wasn’t sure and I had to take lots of risks to get to the point where I became certain that that was how I was going to spend my life.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A.  Sore.
I can’t imagine that I will ever do anything else so it would be nice to think that I could tackle big project and to be able to think that I might have help. Retirement is not an option, not that I would ever want to stop doing what I do.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. I feel it is my duty to encourage young people with an artistic commitment and passion to become artists but no artist can pass on their particular artist  skill because the nature of being an artist is unique to each artist.
I could say that I have taught a few young people to weld but, more importantly, I have encouraged more to learn how to draw.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. That’s a difficult one. I’d be prepared to have an input if someone was at the stage of knowing what they wanted to do. The danger would be creating a clone of yourself.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. Absolutely, can you imagine a world without skills?

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world.
A. Being an artist changes the way I see the world. I work with metal because I  have a passion for it so that does make me appreciate metal in all its guises, but I think being an artist  is about having sensitivity and a perception for whatever you are surrounded by, so yes the world can seem different if you are always aware of what’s around you.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. Well, I’m now lucky enough to spend all day every day doing the thing that means so much to me and I earn enough money to have a good life.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. It has nearly sent me round the bend.
The only good thing about it for me is that I can send images of my work more quickly and people can see what I do via the Internet but I would happily go back to a time before it all existed
For all the positive outcomes I have just as many or more time wasters contacting me.
It makes admin time even longer..

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession?
A. I think, whether through education or government policy, the value of art must not be lost.
I think it would be dangerous for society to see art as an add-on extra. It is essential to people’s understanding of themselves and the world.

Q.  What is your principle professional skill?
A. I’m a Baker.

Q. Can you tell us a little about it?
A. I started a coffee shop in 1999 and I started baking bread for the shop. Around 2000/2001 delicatessen started to open up in Aberdeen, and farm shops and farmers markets began to appear so I started to bake bread for them too. At that time I was the only one doing things on the organic front in the area. I use a wood oven and organic, locally sourced flour. I was very busy for a couple of years but then the delis started to tail off. Now my sales are principally the farmers markets which I do once a week. I used to go up to the Huntly area but now I have a stand at Stonehaven, Inverurie, Banchory and Aberdeen Farmers Markets.

Q. How long have you been practising your skill?
A. About 12 or 13 years.

Q. How did you learn your skill?
A. I am self-taught.

Q. How long did it take?
A. It’s a gradual learning process, improving over time.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. Not exactly. Probably the closest comparable baker is in Findhorn.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. That’s difficult to say. My aim when I began was to provide good quality organic produce. However it is more expensive due to the cost of the ingredients and I therefore supply a small percentage of the population. My most consistent clientele is at the farmers markets, 80 percent of my sales are to known customers. Some people have been buying the same thing from me for years. I think they would miss me if I wasn’t there.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. Small businesses are making a come back, with people starting to bake bread, etc, from their own kitchens, garages, etc. It could be to do with the economy. Prior to the 1960s most bread was made by small bakers so it’s a return to that.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. I get my flour from a farmer in Northumberland who grows heritage varieties, pre-war varieties of wheat. The yields are lower but the wheat has less protein than modern varieties and that affects the gluten content. The bread is therefore easier to digest.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. It goes in cycles. I run bread making courses which are well attended, but they need to have the ability to maintain an interest. There is now the Real Bread Campaign, set up by Andrew Whitley, who was a BBC correspondent in Russia. He noticed that in Russia they are able to bake good quality bread on a large scale so why can’t we? Through that campaign schools have become involved.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. Very important.

Q. How could that be achieved?
A. People learning would have to start in a bigger bakery but keep an independent mind in order to do their own thing.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A.  I am not a big enough bakery to take someone on. People have asked to be taken on as an apprentice but I couldn’t offer them enough work.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. That’s very hard to answer. It comes down to having to make a living from it. It would have to be funded.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. Yes, it makes you think small. I regularly go to the Terra Madre in Turin, a forum for small food producers. They fund small communities in third world countries to enable producers to come to the event. People whose skills hold communities together. I meet people from all over the world.

Q. What kind of rewards to you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. The feedback from people. Being made to feel that what you are doing is worthwhile.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. Primarily for the bread making courses we have a website, people can message us through that.

Q. How do you use the internet for your work?
A. Some ordering over the web but not a lot. I usually use the telephone.

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help preserve your skills and support your profession?
A.  The introduction of apprenticeship schemes.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
Could you tell us a little about it?
A. I am a stained glass artist, with interests in restoration and contemporary stained glass.

Q. How long have you been practising your skill?
A. I first started working with glass in August 2002.

Q. How did you learn your skill? How long did it take?
A. I was initially taught at an evening class, by Linda Lees-Hyslop. I was relatively proficient at the basic hand-skills, and had a commission after my first term of lessons. A combination of circumstances led me to start working professionally after less than a year of part-time tuition.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
Not according to most builders. The most common refrain I hear from clients is that they were told “Nobody does that anymore…”.  I was lucky to be mentored by Michael Zappert, the Aboyne-based stained glass artist and restorer. Michael, in turn, was informally apprenticed to Martin Farrelly in his Kincardine O’neil studio. Martin was formerly head glazier at Pluscarden Abbey before starting his own studio, trained at Whitefriars in London, and retired in 2010. Michael is still carrying out both new commissions and restoration work. Three smaller studios (William Stables (Banchory), Dolphin Glass (Insch) and Mari Ewen (Newtonhill)) have closed in the last few years, but one new studio has been started up in Aberdeen as a result of the closure of AC Yule, the large glazing firm. There is also a stained glass business based in Hatton of Fintry run by Jane Bayliss. Traditional glaziers also carry out some leaded glass work, but tend to use decorative glass for convenience. I also supply specialist services to glazing firms who no longer have staff trained in stained glass.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. There is little domestic stained glass in the Aberdeenshire area, but domestic properties with stained glass make up a significant part of the built environment in Aberdeen itself. Non-secular buildings which contain stained glass continue to see falling numbers of parishioners, and stained glass, unfortunately, is rarely considered in this area as an option for artworks in new-build developments. The number of practitioners is falling slowly over the years, but since the overall amount of glass is also decreasing (modern alternatives to stained glass tend to be installed, even in listed buildings) the loss of the skills may not affect many building projects.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. There has been an increased appreciation of domestic glass by householders at the same time as stained glass has fallen out of favour as a medium in public commissions. Increased emphasis on “architectural glass” (screen-printed, kiln-formed, fused and cast) by commissioning bodies means that many glass studios will have to carry out fewer stained glass commissions, more restoration and repair work and offer a broader range of glass-related techniques than 40 years ago. Larger studios are less common, and many practitioners will work as sole-traders or 1/2 person studios. Very few church commissions are on offer, and these tend to go to established practices from the Central Belt.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. I suspect smaller studios will struggle to survive, and that the skills required to repair windows may become concentrated in a few studios. Many churches will close in the next 10-20 years, and the buildings will be re-purposed. Potentially a lot of stained glass will be lost, because the cost of repair is too high and builders will always take the easy option and replace stained glass whenever possible. High end restoration will be carried out by two or three large studios and new commissions will be given mainly to established artists, who will have their windows made by larger studios, often outside of the UK. Domestic stained glass will continue to be appreciated, and a proportion of home owners will pay to maintain and retain their own glass.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. I’m not sure about how important it is, but I do know that it is not happening. The majority of students on my class are over 50, and are not interested in learning a craft, only to make a one-off panel. I’ve taught around 20-30 students a year for the last six years, and I know of only one who is making stained glass as part of his living. Stained glass is no longer taught at Art School in Scotland, and restoration is only taught at two or three establishments in the UK.

Q. How could that be achieved?
A. The biggest change would be for people responsible for commissioning public art in Scotland to consider stained glass as a medium, as it is in almost every other country in Europe. That way students would be encouraged to work in stained glass, and skills would transfer to people who will use them. A reintroduction of stained glass teaching at Art Colleges would then become viable.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. I have one assistant who has been working part time with me for 2 years. Due to the nature of my business, she is self-employed with other jobs and I sub-contract work to her on an ad-hoc basis.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world.
A. From the perspective of being skilled enough to make things with my hands, I don’t think so. It may have lead me to a lifestyle in which I experience certain things I wouldn’t have otherwise, but you could argue the opposite, that because of things I have experienced, I’ve managed to become skilled enough at what I do to make a living. Two people with the same skill, or even two people skilled in similar crafts will always view the world in different ways. I can watch a plasterer finish a wall, or a plumber braze a fitting and appreciate the skill involved, not because I personally work with my hands, but because it’s obvious that what these people are doing is difficult and they are making it look easy.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. I don’t know. I’ve written code and HTML for almost 20 years, so have a deeper understanding of what can be done using computers, and how to do it. I’ve used e-mail (or variants of it) since 1988 and don’t really have much of an appreciation of what work was like without the internet. Broadband simply makes things happen faster. It’s probably like asking someone in the 80’s how the telephone had affected their work! I would say that digital photography has played a much bigger part, as that changeover impacts many aspects of my practice, from field based note taking to site surveys.

Q. How do you use the internet for your work?
A. E-mail. Point of Contact. Business website. Cloud storage. Accounting. Advertising. CRM. Sales. Goofing Off. Inspiration. Research. Teaching. Project management. Promotion of Stained Glass. Digital Archiving. Photo Library. Not necessarily in that order!

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. The main satisfaction for me is that I get to make things with my hands. I take a pile of materials and turn them into something more than a sum of their parts. Having worked as an academic for ten years after completing my PhD, I found the physical aspects of my job (things like mending outboard motors on fieldwork in Greenland or fixing leaks on an SEM vacuum system in the lab) far more interesting than the pimping of ideas to get a grant to write a paper to get a grant to write two papers.

The financial aspect of my work is relatively unrewarding, in that I pay myself a minimal salary and reinvest much of the income in materials and in training an assistant. The flexibility of the work, however difficult that is to quantify, is immensely useful to our family.

As much of the work I do is on a six – eight week cycle, and I run ten or so projects at once, I get to complete 30-40 projects year a year. There is a feeling of accomplishment when a project ends, as a window is installed, certainly, but probably no more than in a lot of other fields.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. Dry stone walling.

Q. Can you tell us a little about it?
A. It involves creating a boundary wall without using any mortar.

Q. How long have you been practising your skill?
A. Full time for 10 years. Before that I worked for a landscaping company for 5 years and did dry stone walling as part of that. I first learned how to build walls 25 years ago.

Q. How did you learn your skill?
A. I took a course at Agricultural College and then carried on learning with on the job experience, working alongside more experienced people.

Q. How long did it take?
A. The principles are learned in a short time and competency can be achieved in a few months depending on the individual. However,  even now, I’m still learning to be better at it and more efficient. You never stop learning how to get better.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. I only know of a few professionals in the North East, although there will be people who do it as part of another business but very few people who do it exclusively.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. As this is an area where there are a lot of dry stone walls and very few people who will repair them in the traditional way, it is important that there are people such as myself who do this.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. There would have been dry stone wallers up to the Second World War but it declined after the war. After the 1950s and 60s there was a revival of interest. There are courses provided for hobbyists. There was a time when there was only repairing, not building. However planners are now requiring dry stone walls in building schemes but there are not sufficient skilled people to do it.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. The future is healthy especially in this area because of the planners requiring dry stone walls. Anybody wanting to do this skill would find work. It is quite well paid as few people are doing it. However it wouldn’t suit everyone. Not everyone wants to work outside in all weathers and it is perceived as heavy work.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. It will be self-perpetuating as there is a living to be made from it.  It is not a dying skill that needs to be saved.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. Yes.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. No. It will survive as long as there is a living to be made from it.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. A little.  I look at things with a critical eye and appreciate other people’s skill.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. Financially I can support my family. I get satisfaction from building something knowing that it will be there for a long time. I like the fact that there is a history in the walls I repair.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. It’s been great. I joined the Dry Stone Walling Association and I can be found through them on the internet, I get lots of work from that. In the past I used Yell.com and it did not work for me. Half of the work I get now is from people I know already and half from e-mail.

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession?
A. I’m not concerned that dry stone walling is going to die. I think it has a healthy future.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. Lead Cheesemaker

Q. Can you tell us a little about it?
A. We make hard pressed cheese with raw cow’s milk. The farmhouse recipes we use have been passed down through the generations of the Reid family. They have been kind enough to let me in on the recipes.

Q. How long have you been practicing your skill?
A. Five years.

Q. How did you learn your skill?
A. I was trained by John Knox, a consultant who has been making cheese and involved in traditional Scottish cheesemaking for over 40 years.

Q. How long did it take?
A. I’m still learning. Experience counts for a lot but with cheese you are always learning.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. There are other cheesemakers but they all do it differently. We use traditional methods and ingredients with minimal mechanisation.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. Pretty important. We’re keeping important traditional cheesemaking methods alive. You hear stories from local farms about the cheese they used to make in the region before it became so difficult to own your own cow and produce from its milk.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. Scottish cheesemaking was moved to more industrialized volumes post-war but this appears to be changing. More small producers are popping up and we pride ourselves in bringing back more traditional hands-on cheesemaking methods. Our methods can be hard work but the proof of their worth is in the quality of the cheese.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. We’ve moved into a new purpose built facility with new equipment. It’s also a great place for customers to visit, set in the beautiful Cairngorm National Park overlooking the Lochnagar mountain.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. Good. We’re building a great reputation and the skills we use are important to continuing the high quality of our products.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. Very important. Passing on our skills ensures that the legacy continues and that the quality of our products continues.

Q. How could that be achieved?
A. By training people .

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. Yes, I relish the chance to take on more staff and train them as cheesemakers.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. Everything you do helps you see the world from different perspectives.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. The final product. Positive feedback from customers. As a creative person there is a reward in doing something that inspires me.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. Opportunities to see what other producers are doing and access to customers. Access to suppliers and information and research into products. Problem solving.

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession?
A. There is good support already in the Specialist Cheesemakers Association. The passing on of skills and the preservation of skills is important as well as being open about sharing skills with other producers. Pre-war Scotland was revered as one of the best cheesemaking nations in the world. We hope to play our part in returning to that!

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. Farriery

Q. Can you tell us a little about it?
A. Shoeing horses and foot care. The general well-being of horses. It’s about 100 years since the professions of farriery and blacksmith split.

Q. How long have you been practicing your skill?
A.I started my apprenticeship in 1996.

Q.How did you learn your skill?
A. A 4 year apprenticeship and then learning while working ever since.

Q. How long did it take?
A. I’m still learning, you never stop learning.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A.Yes, there are 18 registered farriers in Grampian. There are two and a half thousand in the UK. Second to Newmarket, Aberdeenshire has the highest number of horses per head of population.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. Beyond recognition. The traditional skills are going from being empirical to evidence based. The use now of MRI, high speed cinematography, pressure plates, high speed cameras, etc helps the owners to discuss treatment with the farrier. Also mobile technology, having a mobile
phone is a great help for me. The quality of the kit I use, to some extent. The materials I use have evolved, although the core is still steel and iron the use of acrylics, plastic and glue is now possible. Basically there is a fusion of old world skills and new technologies. A farrier is in a position
to be able to keep a horse working and to prevent harm to the horse occurring. For example a plastic shoe can now be made that can be used like a hoof to enable the horse to continue working.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. Should be good, it’s too specialist to die out. A farrier has to be registered. (Farriers Registration Council). There is a guild of farriers based in London (Worshipful Company of Farriers).

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A.Massive

Q. How could that be achieved?
A.We are solely apprenticeship based, there is no college route. There is a block release scheme to college where apprentices learn such things as the structures of pathology, etc, but the onus is on the training farrier to bring the apprentice on.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. Yes, I do. I am on my fourth apprentice.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. Yes definitely. I appreciate what skilled people can make. Not necessarily in the traditional methods but good methods done intelligently and effectively.

Q.What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. Really good quality of living. I always put 100 percent into my work. I never suffer from insomnia. I get job satisfaction from knowing that I’ve made a difference and huge pride in the work and a job done well. Comfortable horse. Happy owner.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A.From my perspective, improving education and knowledge base. Keep up to date reading scientific papers. Want to progress the industry.

Q. What, if anything could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession?
A. It is up to our own industry to educate our clients better, it needs to
evolve.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. Artisan Cheesemaker.

Q. Can you tell us a little about it?
A. It’s a rare thing to be able to be in, an opportunity to bring back a nearly lost skill. It’s incredibly challenging. I love cheese, I spend a lot of my spare time talking about cheese!

Q. How long have you been practising your skill?
A. Two years. But through my grandmother there is a family interest. It is her recipes that are used here.

Q. How did you learn your skill?
A. I had a wonderful opportunity to learn under Scott Sutherland Thomson and John Knox. It has been a privilege to learn the trade.

Q. How long did it take?
A. It’s an ongoing process. It’s something you never stop learning about.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. There are a number of small artisanal cheesemakers but we are traditional and unpasteurized.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. From a historical context, after intense mechanization, the small hand crafted skills are coming back. This is important in terms of preserving the providence of what we do.

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. My grandmother made cheese very much to feed the family. Then there were 2 to 3 decades when the scaremongering affected unpasteurized cheese but now we are coming back to unpasteurized products, the job is however 1 part making 2 parts cleaning.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. Never had something as all encompassing, from making and dressing the cheese, packing and visiting customers, from start to finish, that is rare in this day and age.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. Hopefully it will go from strength to strength. Creating new products, eg. smoked cheese. We do things in the most traditional way possible. There is no processing. You take a pride in what you do.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. The recipes are my grandmother’s. My uncle owns the company. It is a dream come true. Very important.

Q. How could that be achieved?
A. In the long run, running workshops through the WRI, the Rotary Clubs, etc. Raising awareness.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. In the future, yes.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. Absolutely. Industrialisation and mechanization for the sake of making things easy is not always the best.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. Yes, cheese is unique. I am passionate about it.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. As much a reward coming to work in the heart of the Cairngorm National Park.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. Social networking for marketing.

Q. How do you use the internet for your work?
A. That’s not my role.

Q. What, if anything could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession?
A. It would be nice to see agricultural colleges taking cheese making on. There is a need for more companies like this one and for support for small companies.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
A. Maker of Stringed instruments and restorer of Violins, Violas and Cellos.
Making violin bows, repairing and rehairing.

Q. Can you tell us a little about it?
I follow the Italian principles of Violin making using only traditional methods used by the masters. Using only the finest materials.

Q. How long have you been practising your skill?
A. I’ve been making instruments since 2004.

Q. How did you learn your skill?
A. I studied at the internationally acclaimed Newark School of Violin Making where I studied under Pat Jowett in violin making and Paul Gosling in the repairs and restoration.

Q. How long did it take?
A. The course starts in year 1 by making a Viola D’ Amore making a six string instrument from the baroque period.
Year 2 you make your first violin with an option to make a second.
Year 3 Is varnishing, making a Viola and studying acoustics.
Year 4 Final year is making a cello and pre-test violin. The final exam violin, which takes 5 weeks to complete, for the coveted Beares diploma and Newark Diploma.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. Marshall Dow of Aberdeen, who makes great mandolins, and David Duthie of Kemnay.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. I would like to think that the skills I have could be passed down for future generations and not be lost. In the past, the Aberdeen area was abundant in excellent and talented makers that were lost because of overseas competition and cheap imports. This not only affected this area but the whole of the UK

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. It’s not evolved much, for example I use traditional glue that is reversible, hide glue which is soluble in water, it’s been around for centuries. Nowadays there are lots of Chinese imports which are low quality and can’t be restored. Some of their instruments are made with some sort of white glue that isn’t reversible and unfortunately these are made with good wood but treated as a disposable item. Their instruments are made so thin, this produces a good sound now but will not last. Past makers had the same problem and their instruments need constant repairs

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. Shortcomings of the way the industry wants to go, mass production which is against craftsmen. Some customers’ lack of product knowledge. But if it gets children playing an instrument then that’s a good thing, regardless of competition. Making violins and other instruments is an evolving learning process and I’ll never stop learning.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. I am passionate about violin making. It depends on whether an individual has that hunger for it and if you want to pass on the skills. The skill focused me on what the wood can do, the beauty of the wood, I can tell who the maker is. I want to make the best for the violinist, it’s an emotional rollercoaster. Modern violins are destroying forest for profit.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. Incredibly important.

Q. How could that be achieved?
A. I’ve still to find someone who is as passionate as I was when I first started. So until then I’ll keep looking for that someone!

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. I have done. I would like to take on an apprentice, for them to work for a master as I did. But the student has to get the fundamentals and need to get them from school and learn the craft.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. No.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. Very much so, and when I hear someone playing an instrument I’ve made I wonder if it’s all real.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. Seeing the smile on the client’s face when I’ve transformed the sound of their violin. The process of repairing and restoring a violin is very emotional. If you think you’re going to get rich with violin making then you’re in the wrong game, and you won’t, it’s a way of life!

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. It has opened it up. I can research instruments online, find information, make valuations. I recently found a very rare book on varnish on the internet.
Also for example there are people all over the world that are friends now because of instrument making. I have clients in Australia, the USA and Canada. It’s brilliant.

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help preserve your skills and support your profession?
A. It would be great if people could spend their money locally if they can, but I’m a realist so all I can do is more promotion of the skill.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
Piano Tuner and Restorer.

Q. Can you tell us a little about it?
A. Rebuilding pianos and different types of tuning. Tuning pianos for homes and concerts. I am a member of the Institute of Musical Instrument Technology (IMIT).

Q. How long have you been practicing your skill?
A. 40 + years

Q. How did you learn your skill?
A. A proper apprenticeship. I served time with Bruce Millers working for journeymen. Hands on.

Q. How long did it take?
A. Five years apprenticeship then you keep on learning as you work.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
A. Yes, four in the North East of Scotland.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. Very

Q. How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
A. When I started the pay was very poor and I had to play in bands at night to supplement it. Around 1975 the wages came up to encourage people to go into the industry but then they pulled back again.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. Most pianos just require tuning now. Days of rebuilding and restoring are a thing of the past.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. Basically exist as being a tuner and doing small repairs.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. Young teachers are advocating electronic pianos. Will there be pianos in the future?

Q. How could that be achieved?
A. It would be brilliant for that to happen but I don’t see it. People don’t want to spend money on pianos.

Q. Would you be prepared to train someone?
A. It would be difficult because the skills I have are no longer asked for. The piano trade has gone through many peaks and troughs.

Q. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. No. Because things come and go. Unless there is a passion for something it will not continue. There is no education in the meaning of tuning. Music schools are using electronic pianos. Society would need to be re-educated with the skills.

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. No, I don’t think so. I look at the world from different angles, specifically from a Christian view.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A. Job satisfaction.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
A. Not a lot. Although music shops are closing because of the internet.

Q. How do you use the internet for your work?
A. I don’t.

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession?
A. Education in schools so students learn what is possible. For example, different types of music. What a musician looks for in an instrument. The skills that are involved to create sound, individual sound.

Q. How did you learn your skill? How long did it take?
A. I was trained by the Glenfiddich distillery coppersmith and the apprenticeship lasted for six years. ( we were the only whisky distillery in the industry to have a resident Coppersmith).

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
A. Very important for the whisky industry as the copper has to be replaced when worn out.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. The main difference is that we had to do most of the construction and installation by hand where they now have electric hoists and forklift trucks.

Q. How do you anticipate the future to be for your skill?
A. As it is still a very hard manual job it is difficult hold on to trained Coppersmiths as the lure of better money and an easier job in other types of companies can be an attraction.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
A. Very important as without Coppersmiths to repair and replace the copper work the whisky industry would grind to a halt.

Q. How could that be achieved?
A. There should be a good incentive given by the government to companies willing to take on apprentices.

Q.. Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
A. Absolutely as they are part of the whisky story

Q. Does having a skill change the way you see the world?
A. Yes, as you can relate to the skills of people all over the world.

Q. What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
A.  In my own case it was job satisfaction. You took a sense of pride seeing your work making whisky.

Q. How do you use the internet for your work?
A. We use it to use it for sourcing and ordering materials

Q. What, if anything, could be done to help to preserve your skills and support your profession.
A.  Keep drinking whisky ( in moderation ) and there will always be a place for a Coppersmith.

Q. What is your principle professional skill?
Could you tell us a little about it?
A. Well , I suppose it has to be cattle, cattle health, management.
I’ve got to be a bit like a doctor really, I’ve got a habit of relating to animals like you would relate to people when they are ill. Animals get ill the same way people do, you have to know how to read the signs.

Q. How did you learn your skill? How long did it take?
A. It’s just experience, you just pick it up. I’m still learning.
They’ve started a new thing, Monitor Farms, where farmers can exchange views and so on. They pick a farm and it is a monitor farm for three years. There’s one at Lost now. They’re getting a lot of interest. It’s quite a new thing, three years past. It’s a good idea, lots of people with the same idea can use the Monitor Farms to learn a lot. They’ve got college people on the farm to study soil and other things and to see how to make it financially viable.
It’s an open meeting.

Farming is really diverse now you’ve got to be able to repair things. You’ve got to be an engineer, you just have to learn how to weld.

I learnt a lot from my father. Things have evolved. It’s very different now from when  he worked. My father grew up with horses. I remember the first tractor, I was eight. We were driving the tractor and he shouted ‘ Whoa!’ to make it stop and it went straight through the fence.
From then on he walked behind the tractor to see if it was going straight – like you would with a horse.

Then I served my time as a motor mechanic, for five years.

I remember the first £100 animal I sold. There was a market at Rhynie once a year in August. We drove the cattle down the road to the mart. I got my first five figure sum.
That was in ’62 or ’63.

Years went on and Rhynie market closed and then the mart was in Aberdeen, it was difficult to get the beast there – and then it moved to Thainstone and that was much better.
The department of Agriculture was down by the station in Aberdeen, now that’s in Thainstone too.

Q. How long has it taken you to learn?
A. A lifetime I’m still learning.

Q. Are there any other people in the region doing what you do?
There are a few in Lumsden. It’s all beef around here. There’s not any arable really. That need big machinery which suits large , flat fields. You need a flat field to take advantage of that.

Q. How important do you think your skill is for the region?
Well, I think it’s very important. It’s a pity that the members of parliament don’t think the same. They just don’t realise how important it is. They used to think it was important. Now it’s all trees, they want Scotland covered in trees, that’s what we’re aiming for.

Q How has your profession evolved over the last few decades?
There are continental breeds now. We used to have Angus, Short Horn, Herefords. We’d never seen a white beasties back then. Then in the mid 80s, I suppose, in came the Charolais.  That was the start of the foreign breeds. Now they’re ten a penny. The main difference is that they are better converters, they put on more weight.
Now they’re getting too big. The cuts are too big, the steaks are too big. The excess is put into manufacturing processed food so you’re penalised if the beast  is too big.
Same with sheep.

The farmer has to produce what the supermarkets need.
It’s a dead end business really. You have to pay the top prices for what you need but you can only sell for what the buyer will give you.
It’s also a case of supply and demand. Beef is scarce at the moment so the prices have gone up. But all the costs have gone up so it’s not that the farmer makes more money because it takes more money to do the job too.

The labour side is completely different. Most farms had hired lads. Now it’s just the farmer and lots of equipment – or they hire a contractor.
It cost less to live then. You had hired help in the house. They helped to feed the hired men.

Soil is an important thing now too. Now people come and test the soil. It can be done by satellite which divides the field into squares. The tractor works by computer and only sprays what’s needed. The satellite steers the tractor, does the plough settings, the sowing, it works it all out. You can bring a tractor into a field and let it do it’s own thing.

Q. What are the main differences between now and when you started?
A. When I started farming it was all self sufficient system. Each farm grew enough to keep his family going. 50 – 60 years ago people were growing oats. There were meal mills everywhere. My dad was a miller and a joiner and an undertaker. The joiners made coffins.
Everybody went to the mill to make oatmeal. Meal was the staple diet. It was good for you. Everybody had a cow for milk.

Q. How important do you think it is to pass the skill on to the next generation?
Very important. But that’s one of the problems. There aren’t enough young farmers. The average age of farmers is 58 and it’s getting older and older. Young people think they can make a better living elsewhere, like in the oil industry.
Farming used to be a whole way of life, you didn’t know anything else. Now they can see other options elsewhere.

Q. How can farmers pass on their skill?
Nowadays most farmers go to college to learn. It’s all so sophisticated now. We used to be able to fix a tractor, now we have to go back to the manufacturer, Same with farming, with all the science, it’s too much to learn just on the farm. It has to be done through education.

Q Do you think that society should feel obliged to find a way of preserving such skills?
Aye, I think so. It’s a bit like a language, like learning a native tongue.
You have to adapt as things change.
Traditional farming is a thing of the past.

Q Does having a skill change the way you see the world.
I’m sure that it does. It’s a pity that the world can’t see the same way.
It’s a way of life a way; of connecting with the land.
People have strayed away from the basics. There’s too big a gap. A few farms take kids in to see they system, so they can learn. It’s a shame if that connection is lost.

Q What kind of rewards do you get from your skill, monetary and/or otherwise?
I think you get a lot of satisfaction. There are a lot of pitfalls and disappointments but when you get a real topper of a calf you forget about all the disappointments.
You just know if it’s a good calf when it’s born. It’s just experience. The back has length, it’s broad and square.
A good beast is square with a leg at each corner. Deep hips and plenty of bone..
When you see a calf’s feet and you think, ‘Can we calve this?’, that’s a good sign.

Q. What impact has broadband and the internet had on your work?
More than I’d like to admit.
I never had a computer but eventually I had to. I got one when I was seventy. I’m no expert but I can do what I need to.
We use it  for selling, for sending reports, to do banking, I can’t do without the internet I’m afraid to say.

Q. Do you have a good internet connection?
It’s ok.
I watch the mart on-line. You can buy and sell on-line now. There are videos of the beast on-line. So you can buy and sell from home but part of going to the market is the exchange ; seeing other people.

Q. What could be done to support your profession.
Well, I suppose the monitor farms will do as much as anything to protect farming. It’s just difficult to to get people to accept it
Farming skills are not enough, we need business experience and accountants on board. And there are issues around EU policy It’s the same policy for everywhere.
Will they give each country its own say? I can’t see it,. I think it’s getting too big.#
I’s like a business which gets bigger and bigger and then gets out of control.

Q: What is your principal professional skill?
A: Well engineering is my main thing; agricultural engineering as well but if you were to go for agricultural engineering nowadays you couldn’t make a living because there’s not enough work doing that kind of work
When I took over from my father in 1985 every farm you’d see around here had somebody in it … and now I think we have two,  that’s just what happens. You can’t make a living, not doing agricultural repairs.. So … we’re just getting bigger in forestry.

Q:And is that still expanding, the forestry side?
A:It is yes. But the thing about it is as the bigger ones are getting bigger the smaller ones are disappearing it’s the same as the farming … The saw mill side of it’s huge.

Q: And are the things that you are making for that industry changing?
A: Ah yes, equipment that we are making is all run by computers now. We’re just doing two projects at the moment …one for the box making  place at Airlie Mill… and it’s totally computerised, it prints all the boxes itself. All it needs is for someone to lay the box onto the machine and it does all the rest itself.

Q: So who does the computer side of it?
A: Well they do it themselves … we just do the engineering bit, but we’ve got to go together with them first because I need to know what they need and they need to know what I need. So you’ve got to work together before it works as well, well that’s just technology isn’t it, it’s got to move on.

Q: And how long have you been working in this business?
A: … I would maybe go to school for two days a week because I’d just be at home helping my father … my father came here in 1945 and that’s the year that I was born so I’ve been here all my life. I worked with him up till 1985 then he retired and I took over … and well, I’m still here.

Q: And you take pride in your work?
A:That’s right yes, well in our line of work here we start from the very scratch from designing the  equipment first and then we manufacture, we paint it and go on to site install it and we’re there to  commission as well. My men they’ll go onto site install the stuff, get it all going and they can see the thing working. I mean how many places can do that now?

Q:Do you go back to maintain work?
A: Oh yes we do we do maintenance work as well. There’s nobody else doing it , that’s the thing.

Q: What are the biggest changes in the profession over that last few decades?
A: Oh well it’s just more technical. When I started, my father was shoeing horses here then,  well that was back in the 60′s. So there were still farmers here using horses for their farms, you see.

Q: So would you make the shoes here?
A: Yes we made the shoes here. My father would be making the shoes and my mother, she’d take all the bookings. you’d just get all your shoes in the morning with a list of names for where you were to go the next

day – all over the country … a lot of running about. It was a sociable kind of job.

Q: And what about young people coming into the profession – is that still happening?
A: We have two young lads here… since they left school, that’s the best time to take them, when they leave school, they start learning then.
…It’s fine giving the loons a job. Jobs are hard to get. Its a interesting job, because your travelling about a lot. every day, you’re raking about somewhere.

Q: What personal satisfaction do you get from your work?
A: That’s what its all about, when I finish a job when you’re on to site and you get the thing all going, that’s your satisfaction, when you see it all working  that’s my satisfaction.

Q: Do you see the young lads getting that?
A: Oh yes…. when they’ve finished a job and you get to site and get the stuff all in and you get it all going and it just finishes off the job. And a lot of people will say to me, there’s not a lot of places in the country that can do that. Usually stuffs all made and bought in and you just install it you see, but its a different thing if you have to make it and put it in and see it working.

Q: What about internet and broadband – how has that changed things for you?
A: Ah, well, I don’t do that, I’ll get email and I’ll phone back…..i just speak over the phone These emails nowadays everything takes so much longer to do because if somebody phones me needing something to be made … we just chat on the phone for about ten minutes and that’s it all finished with. He doesn’t need to phone back and I don’t need to phone him.

Q: But does Heather use it a lot in the office?
A. She does everything with email . There’s still a lot of stuff that comes in with emails, drawings and different stuff….we buy things on line here… The Internet is a thing of the future, there is no question about it.

Q: What would be your dream commission?
A: Every machine we make is a challenge because we have to design it. We built a pointing machine for pointing posts … it must do about 3000 posts a day. A real challenge, it was quite an interesting job.

And are you still enjoying it?
Oh yes, and I’m 68 now.

Q. What would you say your principle professional skills are?
Barry: John and I are both butchers and we learnt the trade from leaving school until now.

Q. So how long is that?
Barry: Too long to count!
John: I’ve been here 30 years; he’s been here longer.
Barry: I’ve been here about 32 years

Q. And how did you learn? Was it through an apprenticeship?
Barry: Yes, we’ve both worked here since we left school. So when we started it was purely just an apprenticeship. You came and you did your five years as an apprentice and you became a fully qualified butcher.
John: There’s not a time limit on becoming a fully trained butcher now, it’s a question of working through the modules and some people do it quite quick, some people take longer, which is quite a good way of doing it; and it’s all in house and the assessor comes round and assess through questions and practical sessions and observations.

Q. So you run the training sessions here?
John: Yes.

Q. Are young people still interested in learning?
John: Yes, at the moment we have two young lads. We try and train up young lads when we need them.
Barry: It can be quite frustrating because you get school leavers and you get them through the training and they come out of the training at 20 or 21 and go into something else but that’s the nature of the beast.
The oil industry is a magnet, everybody wants to earn a few quid, we can’t compete with oil; we just don’t try.

Q. So when you are training them, do they learn to do everything across the board?
John: Yes
Barry: With the Federation there’s different levels and different qualifications. You can become a butcher – you can become a butcher’s baker, you can become a retail butcher – if you do them all; they’re all part of the modules to become a fully trained butcher.

Q. And how many people are there working here now?
Barry:  Twelve
John: Twelve full time.

Q. Where do you make all the pies?
John: The pies are made in this place
Barry: We’ve got a production line.

Q. And what else has changed? Has it changed since you first started?
Barry: Massively
John: Gee wiz aye
Barry: When I started here, we hardly made anything. We made two types of sausages; we made venison sausage when someone asks us too. Now we make something like 30 different varieties of sausage. I think every thing’s taken a stage further than it used to be. You no longer sell chicken to make this… we are making chicken Kiev or making Italian style chicken ready… to put in the oven. When I started butchery the house wife came in and told us the cut of meat they wanted for a particular dish, now they come in and tell me the dish they’re making and ask me to tell them what cut they need. So I think now a butcher has to have cooking skills as well as butchery skills. They need to know what the finished product is going to be.

Q. In terms of machines and the way everything’s done, has that changed as well?
John: The basic machines are still there but they have been improved…
Barry: The machines have improved, but it hasn’t really got any more automated.
John: No.
Barry: One or two things, but on the whole it’s pretty much the same.

Q. And still using knives?
John: Oh aye, still a lot of knife skills, definitely.
Barry: you can’t get away from that. Every beast is different and needs to be cut differently. You can only tell a machine to do the same thing time and time again. Human skills are still needed to find the seams in the muscles and be able to identify if something’s not right. You can’t get a machine to do that.

Q. And where do you source all you meat?
John: We’ve got a couple of farms that breed stuff for us. We’ve got Inverurie… Elgin.
Barry: Yes, we’ve got a couple of farmers who select beasts and we get them direct from the farmer although it goes through the slaughterhouse.

Q. And the game, is that all local?
Barry: The game all comes from the local estates.

Q. What radius do you deliver to?
Banchory; daily, Deeside; daily, as far as Banchory to Aberdeen.

Q. How far north?
Barry: Well we go UK with our mail order service.
John: Online service.
Barry: Online service aye, it’s an online shop.
John: So you can actually shop online and we’ll deliver anywhere in the UK but when you use the mail order service then there is a delivery charge.

Q. Do you think it would be good if people knew a bit more about where meat comes from?

Barry: I think so, I think people are becoming more aware of where meat comes from. It’s quite funny, there was a debate on radio Scotland on Saturday morning, as I was heading to market, about educating primary school children on that their meat actually came off a farm and the chicken that you see running around is the same as the chicken that you eat. It was one of those text in things and I text in saying, ‘Yes, it is important to teach them that, but it’s important to teach them how to cook it as well,’ because that is the gap that’s missing.
Young mums and teenage girls are leaving school and setting up families and unless it comes in a packet to put in the oven with instructions on it they haven’t got clue what to do with it.
That’s the gap, how to turn something that you buy from the butchers into a meal and that’s the gap that we are trying to fill here, by educating our guys. So we’ve tried to do a bit of exchange as well with some of the hotels that we supply, they put a chef up here in the butchery.
We’ve actually talked to them about putting our apprentices in the kitchen.  You can’t stand still. You’ve always got to look at changes in products, changes in the way you do things.

Q. What do you like about your job?
Barry: I don’t know anything else, it’s what I’ve done since I left school and it’s been a great progression being an apprentice to working for Mike, to managing the shop for Mike, to actually having a shop. I mean the two of us have worked together since we left school.

Q. What satisfaction do you get? What rewards?
Barry: I mean we’ve got twelve people working for us. And these guys there all making a living out of what we do here, so I mean it’s not just about making a pound for yourself, it’s local employment and I think a hell of a lot of Ballater and I’ve been brought up here and it’s keeping the place alive.
John: Definitely.

Q. And you’ve certainly got such a good reputation, that must be quite rewarding?
John: That does help. Aye, of course it does.
Barry: Yes, with the Royal connection and having the coat of arms, it’s a great privilege to have these things. I think we’re in a very special area here and I sometimes think we don’t shout loud enough about it.