Success as a paint expert is thanks to my colourful past

THESE days he's a world expert in his field, the man who dukes and princes call upon and whose painstaking work takes place in Scotland's finest palaces and stately homes.

His knowledge has been built up over decades, through his extensive library of technical books, not to mention the mini-laboratory he's had built at home so that he can analyse paints and pigments under microscopes. He also travels the globe to take samples of paint from the world's most renowned buildings.

Yet 52-year-old John Nevin, one of the world's top specialists in Renaissance painting techniques, who is currently working on the 12 million revamp of Stirling Castle, owes it all to the children's panel who, when he was a 12-year-old troublemaker in Leith, decided to send him to approved school.

John grew up on Henderson Street, where mum June worked for the DHSS and dad Jackie was an engineer. He was a pupil at St Mary's Primary School, but admits even at that young age his academic record was less than exemplary.

He prefers to draw a veil over the details of his behaviour – "I don't want people to know certain things" – but does say: "'Wild' would be a good word to describe me at the time.

"It was just Leith in the 60s with gang warfare and things like that."

At 12, he was hauled up in front of the children's panel, where it was decided to send him to approved school – a residential institution for offenders or children deemed out of their parents' control – in Helensburgh.

"If it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't be where I am just now," he explains.

"At the school you spent a week getting assessed in each department – joinery, painting, building, gardening and engineering – and then you got to pick what you wanted to go into. I picked painting and, from the ages of 13 to 16, all I did was paint. If it hadn't been for the school, I 100 per cent wouldn't have been a painter – and my son Mark wouldn't have been a painter either."

Clearly a changed child, after leaving school at 16 John studied a course in painting and decorating at Telford College and became an apprentice painter for Edinburgh decorating company Muirhead, winning Edinburgh's Apprentice of the Year three years running.

He set up specialist painting and decorating company Nevin of Edinburgh in Leith in 1985 from his parent's living room. Now he employs almost 80 staff, including his 22-year-old son Mark, across two companies – he took over Mackay Decorators (Perth) in 1989.

His big break came in the early 1980s when an American woman phoned his Queen Charlotte Street offices out of the blue asking him to come and look at a building. John says: "For all I knew at the time, I could have been going to a bungalow. When I got there, I wondered if I was in the right place."

The woman who had contacted John was in fact Lady Patricia, Baroness of Lee, and the building in question was Lee Castle in Lanark. John's firm ended up working there for two years.

Since then he has painted the interiors of some of Scotland's most prestigious buildings, including the state rooms of the Royal Yacht Britannia, the ballroom at Hopetoun House, the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh Castle, Dumfries House, the First Minister's house at Charlotte Square, and now the royal palace at Stirling Castle, which is being returned to its Renaissance magnificence as part of a 12m Historic Scotland project.

"A lot of painters wouldn't work on one of these in their whole lifetime, never mind a string like that," John adds.

"I love doing it. I had a buzz six months before I started working on the royal palace, I was just bursting to get in. We had been researching it for six months before we started." Of course, the work involves far more than merely slapping on the right colour of paint. The techniques are just as important and John mixes up the colours using traditional ingredients such as rabbit skin glue, which he buys from specialist manufacturers.

The results of his painting techniques are clearly visible inside the royal palace of Stirling Castle, which John and his team have been working on for the last two months and are expected to finish in spring next year. The walls of the Queen's bedroom are painted with a mixture consisting of chalk and rabbit skin glue, which would have been used in the 16th century when Mary of Guise and James V occupied the palace.

A spokesman for Historic Scotland says: "We cannot say the bedrooms would have looked exactly like this 500 years ago, but if someone from the 16th century walked in they would feel at home."

John, a founder member of the Traditional Paint Forum, has even advised Lothian and Borders Police on forensic samples.

About seven years ago, he was asked by the head of the police forensic department to look at how the force analysed paint from crime scenes.

John explains: "If somebody breaks into a house they will have paint on the crowbar or screwdriver, or whatever they have used, and I showed the police a way of matching the paint up – the chances of two houses having the exact same paint are remote."

Assisting the police isn't the only perk of John's job. Having worked on countless stately homes, he has inevitably brushed shoulders with a number of dukes and earls, although he remains tight-lipped on the details, having signed a number of secrecy agreements.

Such expertise doesn't come easily – John reckons he has spent about 15,000 on historical painting books over the years and funding himself through a course in microscopy to learn about paint identification under microscopes.

He even has a lab at his East Calder home with microscopes for analysing paints and identifying pigments, and has travelled as far as Rio de Janeiro to take paint samples from several cathedrals.

As a result, he's not willing to give away his trade secrets – unless, of course, you're his son.

John says: "The traditional side of painting is being forgotten. I will tell Mark everything I know, but I won't tell anybody else because I don't see why I should have taken the time and effort to work on it just to divulge it to somebody else.

"Nobody in Britain has got the experience that I have got in historical paints."

MAKING HIS MARK

MARK Nevin has followed in his father's footsteps and is quickly learning everything he knows about traditional painting techniques.

Last year, Mark was named top decorator at the prestigious WorldSkills competition in Calgary, Canada – "the Olympics for trades" – beating 13 other decorators from across the globe after 22 hours of gruelling tasks in four days.

He also made it to the world final after gaining the title of the UK's best painter and decorator. He was also named painter of the year at Telford College, where he trained from 2003 to 2006.

The 22-year-old, who lives in East Calder, has been working for his dad for seven years.

He said: "During breaks at college I would stay in and read books on old painting techniques while my mates were playing football.

"My house is full of 150 to 200-year-old books on old painting techniques. I got a passion for the finer points of painting."