Annual report Speymouth Forest 1965
The reports are courtesy of Moray and Aberdeenshire Forest District, Huntly.
This is the last available report in this series and it mentions again the problem of increased mechanisation affecting the numbers of workers on the books. The high percentage of part timers in the winter period is becoming increasingly difficult to handle especially as the planting programme is falling. There is a proposition to use the men to fell trees before selling them at stump to the merchants but Bob Allison is of the view that he would be unlikely to get more for them that the costs of cutting down.
There are some interesting points on Scots pine cone collecting and the costs of collecting too early and also too late! Note also the FC worked timber was extracted by Fordson Major tractor (probably 4 wheel drive) which had a Hiab hoist and pulled the logs with a timber arch. Two lorries also with Hiab hoists also hauled the timber from the forest.
The final point is the change of grade for Bob Allison which in the pencilled note indicates he was about to become Chief Forester, this grade created around 1965 when the process began of some forests being amalgamated into much larger units.
It is believed that after 1970 the Forests of Aultmore, Tiendland and possibly Lossie joined up as one Chief Forester unit initial run by Bob Allison until he retired in 1976. Bob trained at Benmore Forester Training School, near Dunoon, but very shortly afterwards enlisted into the army. Invalided out and after recovery he was posted to Shandford Lodge near Brechin as chief instructor in the field training of many hundreds of the newly recruited ladies of the Women’s Timber Corps in the art of felling trees, snedding them, cross cutting and measuring the various products. Following this he was based for some time at Pitmedden Forest, Auchtermuchty before being posted to Speymouth Forest in 1950.
Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports, Northeast Scotland