A hermit who has lived alone in a remote woodland cabin for almost 40 years after resolving to 'never live on anyone's terms' but his own, is set to star in an eye-opening documentary about his life. 

Ken Smith, 74, has survived for almost four decades in the Scottish Highlands with no electricity, gas or running water - relying on a log fire to keep him warm.  

The pensioner lives in a log cabin which he built himself on the banks of Loch Treig, in Lochaber, where his main source of food comes from fishing.

Derbyshire-born Ken also forages for berries and grows his own vegetables, and to this day chops up his own firewood and washes his clothes in an old bath outside. 

He decided to shun modern life aged 26 when Ken, who used to build fire stations, was beaten up by a gang of thugs after a night out. 

But after suffering a stroke in 2019, he now suffers from blurred vision and memory loss, meaning he has had to accept help from outsiders.  

'It's a nice life,' Ken says in the upcoming BBC Scotland programme, 'Everybody wishes they could do it but nobody ever does.' 

For the past two years, filmmaker Lizzie McKenzie has been recording Ken for her documentary The Hermit of Treig, reports the BBC. 

The log cabin is a two-hour walk from the nearest road on the edge of Rannoch Moor.        

'It's known as the lonely loch,' he says. 'There's no road here but they used to live here before they built the dam.'

Looking down on the loch from hillside, he adds: 'All their ruins are down there. The score now is one and that's me.'

The documentary explores how traumatic events in Ken's life led him to turn his back on modern civilisation.