Geophysicist and explorer for oil.

Born: February 22, 1934;

Died: April 30, 2016

JOHN Scott Roy, who has died aged 82, was a distinguished geophysicist whose sense of adventure and peripatetic nature was perfectly suited to a career in international oil exploration.

It was a job in which he excelled and one which took him to some of the most inhospitable and often dangerous corners of the post-war world. From the baking-hot deserts of Oman to the cold damp tundra of the Russian steppes, John Roy spent most of his adult life searching for oil.

It was the age before offshore drilling and a time when major oil companies scoured the land in search of new sources to tap into and satisfy the world’s energy needs.

As a young man in the mid 1950s, recently graduated, Mr Roy started his career with the Texas-based oil company Robert H Ray Inc.

It had been a strange job interview, conducted at Glasgow’s Central Hotel. On arrival, he was directed to a bedroom where he met an American in the course of getting dressed. The American offered him a beer. The occasional job-related question was asked as a stream of people arrived and departed from the oil executive’s room.

Mr Roy eventually left with no great expectations of employment. However, a few days later the company phoned his parents’ home to say they had his visa and travel arrangements were in place. He was to fly out to Iraq immediately.

The subsequent flight aboard a DC3 was something of an eye-opener for the young Scot. Most of his travelling companions were drunk and, at each stop, the on-board bar was replenished as they attempted to drink the plane dry between stops.

He worked for the firm mostly in the Middle East, finding himself posted to Oman, Libya, Syria, the Lebanon as well as Madagascar and Turkey. Facing many hazards along the way, particularly in Libya where he encountered mounted bandits in the desert and had to constantly avoid minefields left over from the war in North Africa.

Later in his career he went freelance, operating as a “bird dog” or client’s representative on exploration crews.

John Roy was born in Baillieston, the second youngest of five children to James and Mary Roy. The family later moved to Milngavie. He was educated at Bearsden Academy where he was Dux of the school. He then went on to Glasgow University where he graduated BSc in 1955.

Childhood asthma prevented him from joining the RAF for National Service, allowing him instead to take that job with Robert H Ray.

In the early 1960s, between jobs and back living in Scotland, Mr Roy met and fell in love with Helen Wylie. They were married in 1962 at the Central Hotel in Glasgow. They had one child, also John Scott Roy.

At one point in the 1970s, Mr Roy tried to leave the oil exploration business and went to Jordanhill College to re-train as a maths teacher while his wife, an accomplished singer, pursued a successful career with Scottish Opera. The family settled in Bishopbriggs.

But by 1975 the appeal of the oil industry proved irresistible and the Roys were on the move once again. However, this time his job with Sonatrach, the Algerian state oil company, almost ended in disaster. When both he and his son fell seriously ill, he decided to cut short his contract and take the family home. But the company refused to honour his contract and exit visas were denied. Virtually trapped, they hatched a plan to row out to an Norwegian vessel in Algiers Harbour and make good their escape. At the last minute, however, exit visas were arranged through the US Embassy.

Mr Roy’s wife refused to ever go abroad to live again and the family settled in London. He continued his career, first working in Iran just before the fall of the Shah and then in Canada and the US for Standard Oil. The nomadic nature of the job took its toll on the marriage and the couple eventually divorced. They remained close friends, however.

He left the USA in 1985 following a major crash in the oil market and moved back to Scotland where he lived with his younger sister, Jean. Now operating freelance as a “bird dog” he worked in Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Siberia and Romania. His experience as a client’s representative on exploration crews prompted him to write a technical book, entitled Bird Dog, which described the job and offered guidance on the practice.

Towards the end of his career, he spent some time with BGP, the Chinese state oil company working with them in Pakistan and giving training courses in China.

After retiring, Mr Roy settled in Ayr where he became a prolific contributor to the Letters page of The Herald. A recurring theme of his contributions was Scottish independence. He had been seriously ill since Christmas and was admitted to Ayr Hospital last month where he died.

He is survived by his son John and a grand-daughter Sofia, aged 11.