John Hamilton at Cumbernauld Forest
Photographs courtesy of William Fleming, Polmont.
John had seen active service in the First World War and used to tell his young forestry colleagues some horrific tales of his experiences. He had always worked in the woods in the locality mainly as a contractor and also hauled timber with a horse. William also remembers that when the Forestry Commission acquired the areas where he had been working they took him on and an employee.
In behind John a large oak tree is lying on the ground. William recalls that Alex Smellie the Head Forester had introduced the process of using special long wedges to split the sections of trunk into fence posts and that some of them are still in fences as of today 2013. One problem when felling the oak trees with their very heavy side branches was the likelihood of the tree falling onto one of the branches and remaining stuck high up on its side. His colleagues convinced William he was by far the quickest person on his feet in the squad and it was he who should go in and chop through the branch with his axe. He does remember carefully going in and taking a couple of quick swipes with the axe and at the first sound of a cracking, or any movement, dashing out with all speed!