My Passion with Mark Chandler: At the cutting edge, but wielding a chainsaw is so cathartic

My wife point blankly refused to let me purchase a chainsaw and I can't really blame her.

I'm somewhat accident prone so consequentially my wife has something of an enforced nervous disposition. Any hobby involving chainsaws was not the ideal pastime in her eyes and I can see how a financial adviser armed with a chainsaw may be a little troubling to the neighbours too.

I blame Christian Bale in American Psycho for giving chainsaw wielding businessmen such a poor image. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre didn't help much either. But one night, armed with an eBay account and a couple of glasses of Pinot Grigio, I found myself the proud owner of my first chainsaw; after that I never looked back.

Five years on and my collection has grown to several saws and an array of two stroke garden machines.

Not to sound too tetchy but there are two types of chainsaw: petrol and electric. I'm more of a petrol-head – you don't have to worry about cables and they wield more power for heavy duty wood cutting.

Weight and size is important as well as strength; you need to grip chainsaws with both hands to avoid kickback.

It beats going to the gym when it comes to keeping fit and you get to enjoy the great outdoors, although my wife may feel our great outdoors has been somewhat cut down to size by now.

Let's just say my approach to cutting trees and bushes hasn't quite given me a reputation as the Edward Scissorhands of the chainsaw world – I am a little less precise.

We used to have a number oftrees on our two-acre plot but most have now been relegated to the log pile.

Shrubs and hedges have also been tamed by a slightly over enthusiastic haircut.

Seriously though, after a hard day's work in all matters financial, I find sawing wood mentally soothing and highly cathartic and thoroughly enjoy reaping the reward of my labours sitting in front of an open log fire on a cold winter's evening.

There's absolutely no parallel between my job and my hobby, which is why I find it so relaxing.

I suppose that sawing wood taps into some fundamental male instinct that dates back to prehistoric times.

It's in our DNA, part of our make-up.

It's true my colleagues think it's a little unusual, but it has come in useful on a number of occasions in keeping their gardens under control.

However, my boss Peter Bates, the group chairman of Ellis Bates, says although it's great I'm so passionate about my hobby it's advisable to set firm boundaries whenever I'm asked to cut things down.