Stuart, Project Manager: Film transcription

My name is Stuart Andrew, I moved up to Caithness in 1997 to start working at Dounreay. I came in as a graduate as a process engineer honestly, I initially saw Dounreay as a stop gap between getting another job and I gave myself 6 months but here I am some 24 years later and still enjoying the job and still loving living in the area.

So, my career progression at Dounreay has gone from the graduate training scheme and then progressed in the waste plants and I now find myself in my role as project manager for the Shaft and Silo operations.

As I say I didn’t have any aspirations to live in the area to begin with, but I have found that not only the job which has provided so much scope for me progress professionally and just developing my own character but also the local area has so much to offer, so much more than what I had back in Ayrshire which is where I grew up.

If you love the outdoors Caithness is a fantastic place to live, one of the things that really kept me here was my love of surfing which I got into just a couple of years after I started and also so many other pursuits that I enjoy cycling and surf boarding, canoeing.

I just love living up here and it is a fantastic quality of life as well if you can handle the weather okay the weather is not always fantastic but the community spirit, the quality of life in terms of the cost of housing and the benefits which come from working at Dounreay, the leave we get, its just a fantastic place to live and it’s made me never ever really want to leave to be honest with you. I just find that it’s the benefits of living up here outweigh any drawbacks.