Thanks for the replies which I have passed on.

My son works with someone who grew up in a logging environment in
Scandinavia, so he has someone else to talk to about this.

I think what happened was that he just started using the saw with arms
crossed without thinking, which is why he found it difficult to adapt to
the proper right handed way.

He seems to have finished for the time being with the chainsaw and is
now working away with the Maul and the triangular log splitter. It works
very well, but 25quid for a simple lump of metal seems a lot of money to
me.
--
Bill