It’s a tweet life for Ulley park ranger

His enthusiasm for his job as park ranger is as evident now as it must have been 13 years ago when he started.

His love affair with the outdoors began when he was at comprehensive school and chose to do his work experience placement at Ulley Country Park.

From then on he spent as much time helping out there as he could, in his holidays from school and then Sunderland University, where he studied environmental biology.

The 37-year-old said: “In this kind of job it’s important to get practical experience, so I helped out every chance I got until I was offered a job.”

“People think of Rotherham as industrial but we’ve got this fantastic countryside. I never get bored of it.”

His most dramatic moment came during the 2007 floods when he discovered that the reservoir wall was at risk of collapse.

He said: “I was on my day off but I saw what was happening on the news and rang my boss to ask if anything needed doing.”

“I went to check on Ulley,and didn’t leave for the next two weeks.”

The council’s emergency plan was put into place and John remembers BBC and Sky news helicopters circling overhead during the anxious wait to see if the wall would hold out.

“It was quite exciting and the adrenalin was going,” he said.

“We didn’t stop for a fortnight, doing things like removing trees so that the engineers could get machines in.”

John, of Brecks, divides his time between Ulley and Thrybergh parks, both run by Rotherham council.

He is one of four core staff whose job it is to look after and maintain the parks, as well as providing information for visitors.