The FC Postings of John C. Keenleyside
My fourth FC work posting was to Mearns Research Silviculture North base at Drumtochty.
I arrived in Jan 1961 to take over from a forester who had disappeared under a black cloud. No handover, just arrive and get on with it. There was an assistant forester there Alec Reid whom I knew from Glentress Forester Training School. He organised accommodation for me with his wife and family in a big old house the former Rectory for the church in the Glen. Winifred was a Yorkshire lady with a farming background and being a domestic science teacher it back to good food.
I was now in a forester-in-charge post and on a different salary scale with one more hurdle to cross - an efficiency barrier half way up. There was a F.C. house with this post. The old estate head gardener’s cottage was in need of some refurbishment and would take some time and would also incorporate the office for the post. I decided to take the plunge and got married and took up residence.
The area covered was quite simple namely the counties of Aberdeen, Kincardine and Angus. The furthest north work was in Bin Forest, Huntly where we had a massive Norway spruce provenance trial. The south boundary was Hallyburton Forest, East of Forfar, where we had Poplar trials behind the forestry houses. The west side of Angus took us up Glen Isla where we had European larch provenances suffering badly from canker and die back and so we collected seed from the ten best plantations in Scotland and planted them up there. Glenprosen was a young forest where we planted a Western hemlock provenance experiment which was a very grassy site. We created Bed and Breakfast conditions for voles, so many that when you stepped on top of a furrow if a vole run out one of the many raptors swept down and collected the escaping vole at your feet. Glen Doll had its office at the youth hostel and we had a pilot plot high up on the Duke's pass. I remember the travelling people spent the early summer collecting pearls from the burns and river before departing to pick rasps in the Blairgowrie area and tatties later on.
The nearest the East coast work was at Montreathmont Forest between Brechin and Arbroath where we had restocking experiments following felling of Scots pine crops. We developed the S60 T90 plough there, made by Clark of Parkgate Dumfries. The project leader was George Taylor and after a few trips up and down to Dumfries the plough went to a local firm where the tractor driver, Jim Connell, and I spent three days with the company on further development. It did plough efficiently after that and achieved the desired cultivation depths.
Kirkhill Forest, near Aberdeen airport, was where we were engaged in re-stocking work and trying to extend the range of species on a hard exposed hillside where the original crop was Scots Pine. Our western boundary took us up Deeside to Alltcailleach Forest which was originally part of the Royal Estate at Birkhall. Our work here was mainly applying fertilisers to big Scots pine in order to gain a better output of sawlogs. This work was carried out in conjunction with The Macaulay Institute, our contact man was Hugh Miller who later became professor of forestry at Aberdeen.
The core work however was at Drumtochy, Fetteresso and Durris Forests. Drumtochty had seed orchards and pollination work on the door step and attempts with cultivation and mixtures to extend productive forest higher up the hill. Lower down we had conversion of larch crops into a wider range of species. Fetteresso was a young forest with many cultivation and Japanese larch provenance trials. We had one experiment to monitor the growth of Sitka spruce which had a computer installed on site and was carried out in conjunction with the university. Durris had spacing experiments dating back to the 1930's which helped to confirm the tree planting spacing used today. More pole stage fertiliser trials to try and boost the growth of Norway Spruce and pruning of Douglas fir to produce high quality knot free logs.
Clashindarroch Forest at Gartly, Huntly, was associated with experiments from the 1920’s, massive European larch provenances on the Mytice face (a steep slope with a variety of species and mixture experiments), a few cultivation trials on the lower slopes and over at Drumfergue early experiments with ploughs drawn by horses in the 1920’s.
On top of that hill was an early Lodgepole pine provenance experiment. During my time mixture experiments were planted at White Geese mainly to encourage growth of Sitka spruce. At a recent chance meeting with a tree harvester operator I was told that these experiments had been felled and very good Sitka spruce sawlogs obtained.
The small industrial work force was similar to those of my experience in Yorkshire, hard working and adaptable to the wide range of tasks involved. My assistant Alec Reid moved on to Keilder to be replaced by Martin Rodgers, a bright English chap, who fitted in well with the work and the local community. A young English chap, John White followed, who was a great plants man and botanist but not so fond of measurement and figures. He ended up in charge at Westonbirt which was the ideal post for his skills.
I spent ten years in this post. The efficiency bar hurdle disappeared in the 1965 re-organisation but a much higher one replaced it: each charge was allocated a grade. My post was allocated Head Forester grade and there was I sitting there as a relatively junior forester. Lots of Head Foresters in the field fancied the post and rumours were rife, but I was invited to a promotion board, passed and became a Head Forester. That was why I was at Drumtochty for ten years (almost a quarter of my F.C. service). On promotion to Head Forester, entering a new salary scale and getting some back pay, I said to my wife ‘We can get a new car and think of other ways to spend money!!!’.
The end to this lengthy and happy posting came in Dec 1970. David Seal Silviculture (North) phoned me up and told me ‘Martin Rodgers is coming to Drumtochty to take over from you and you are being posted back North. Geoff Bartlett is being promoted from Head to Chief and going to the North Yorks Moor post where John Weatherell (whom I served with on my first posting) is retiring. The office base of the North Post is going from Ardross to Lairg and your first task is to organise the transfer’.
Lots of stories could be told of the Drumtochty location and one can summarise the situation, environment, culture and language in the following account. In the mid sixties I was allocated two Polish university students to help during the summer vacation. They travelled overnight by train from London and I picked them up from the train at Stonehaven and took them home for breakfast, after which I took them to digs that I had arranged in the farm house a short distance from the office. I knocked on the door and the farmer’s wife emerged and said ‘Come a wa in Loons tak a chair pu it in aboot - get your feet ablo the table and make yersels at hame”
This welcome completely failed on the students who had not one word of
English, I ushered them in, got them a chair at the farmhouse kitchen table and that was them installed. In those days the farm house kitchen was where all plans were made, all decisions taken, all deals done, whether for selling grain or buying machinery. There the baking was done and the product eaten by all around the table.
The 1963 photograph by John shows Drumtochty Experiment Number 7 with Scots pine controlled pollination in progress.
Groups: Forest Research, Forestry Areas