Stuart Montgomery

Stuart Montgomery grew up in southwest Scotland and studied at Stirling and Aberdeen universities. He spent a summer working as a furnace operator in Norway, then returned to Scotland and worked in turn as a psychiatric social worker, social researcher and lecturer. Then in the course of a belated gap-year that has still not ended, even though decades have elapsed, he became an itinerant mountain leader and a teacher of cross-country skiing. He has helped to run two specialist travel companies, Waymark Holidays (until 2004) and XCuk (until 2014). He has held qualifications as a mountain leader, cross-country ski instructor, Nordic walking instructor, fitness instructor and personal trainer. He has also taught navigation for walkers. He is a regular guest on BBC Radio Berkshire, mainly on Bill Buckley's afternoon feature on health and wellbeing, and is an occasional guest on other programmes. To see some of Stuart's images of cross-country skiing, go to www.pinterest.com/montgomerywrite.