Forest Postings Letter 1963
Photographs courtesy of Abbie Gordon, Banchory.
Abbie has kept his first postings letter and envelope which instructs Abbie, who is about to finish his Forester School training, to report for duty to Mr J Webster at Blackhall Forest on 12 August 1963. This was the normal tone of such letters, at that time, when ever a transfer to another forest or area was required. Very often there was little warning and certainly very little prior discussion on transfers from one forest to another.
Foresters over time came to recognise the postings letter envelope which was always opened with a high degree of trepidation perhaps in the presence of the family who were or could be very significantly affected by some of the postings – particularly if the location was very remote or on one of the Islands. Conversely if the forester and family were in a very difficult or less than ideal forest posting for family reasons etc there was great hope when a postings letter arrived. However there have been instances in the past when some unfortunate individuals were posted ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’ on occasions.
It should be noted that the recycling message was quite a feature in the past as envelopes were frequently reused by sticking on a large sticky address label which was large enough to fold over the top of the cut envelope thus sealing it for use again. Large envelopes would frequently be used quite a number of times and indeed had to be so as any requests by the forester for new ones often got short shrift.
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Groups: Forester Training Schools and Universities, Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports, Northeast Scotland