Chris sentences himself to a well-earned break

Mr Paterson has decided to retire as a JP on the date of his 70th birthday, April 21, 2011.

"Since starting in 1992, I have been available 24/7 to sign warrants for the police, day and night," he said. "But I think I will miss it."

Mr Paterson has regularly worked at Edinburgh's Justice of the Peace courts in Sheriff Court House on the city's Chambers Street.

"It is always interesting and there is always something happening.," he said.

"Being a JP is an awesome responsibility, if you convict someone that conviction stays with them for life and I was always very conscious of that when making decisions."

He fondly recalls one specific case early in his career, when he cleared a man accused of stealing six bottles of vodka from a local shop due to an error in the charge statement. When he read out the verdict the free man proclaimed: "What about the vodka? Do I get to keep it?"

Mr Paterson was born in Hexham, 40 miles south of the Scottish Border. "My mum was rushing to Glasgow to have me, but I occurred just the wrong side of the Border," he said.

He was brought up in Glasgow and went to Hillhead primary and secondary schools.

He left school in 1960 to start work as a bank clerk at the British Linen Bank, which was bought over by the Bank of Scotland in 1969.

"I hated the bank but had to last the year to get a reference for my next job," he said.

He then joined the Glasgow Meteorological Office in 1961, where he worked for three years as a scientific assistant, helping to further his interest in meteorology, which he still pursues today.

He then left Glasgow to train as a science teacher at Southlands College in Wimbledon and graduated in 1968 with a teacher's certificate in physics and general science before moving further in to London to teach at William Blake's Secondary School in Battersea.

Having left London and moved back to Glasgow in 1970 to teach physics at Gallowflats Secondary School in Rutherland, now part of Stonelaw High School, he then moved to Edinburgh in 1972, to achieve a Community Education Certificate at the Moray House School of Education.

Feeling he had found his niche he spent the next 25 years working in education and was presented with the Lothian Award in 1994 for his service to the community.

Mr Paterson retired from education in 1996 after five years of juggling his JP role and work as a teacher.

He says he now plans to enjoy his well-earned retirement.