Steven McKay

Dry-stone-dyker and Builder, Steven McKay

I left Scotland in 1989. My apprenticeship was just finished and there was no work in Britain. You couldn’t earn money.

I went to Germany and then I travelled the world for years, teaching and building.

My wife and I came back to Scotland five years ago with my three kids, to bring them up here. We came back partly to be near family and friends and also because we could afford a house here. And Scotland is a good safe place to be.

Environment

Most importantly, I wanted to help turn around our attitudes to the environment and to make Scotland a better, safer, cleaner place for my children. Coming home gives me a chance to play my part in making a difference.

I learned a lot from living abroad, especially from living in Germany for five years. For example, even twelve years ago, everyone in Germany was recycling whereas it’s only just coming in here.

When I moved back to Scotland, I wanted to do something to get people to think about recycling so I pushed a wheelie bin from here down to Edinburgh – 200 miles. It took nine days. I got there just before Christmas. It helped get something off my chest.

Work

Scotland is a very different country to the one I left in 1989.

Now I’m snowed under with work and I have to turn jobs down. There’s nobody within a twenty mile radius of here doing what I do. That’s why we’re going on holiday – to get away from it for a few months!

Proud

My wife’s nephew is thinking of coming over here from Germany. He’s just seventeen and he’s interested in learning to be a builder and a dry-stone-dyker like me. When you have a trade, you can work anywhere

I’ve worked all over the world but it never mattered where I was – be it Africa, South America, Europe or Australia. I was always a proud Scot.

Steven McKay is a dry-stone-dyker and builder. He and his wife Sabine and their three children live in Portsoy, a small coastal village midway between Aberdeen and Inverness.