Hugh Greig and Volvo BM Forwarder
Photograph is courtesy of John Ireland, who is currently based at Lochaber Forest District.
John comments:
‘This was our frontline harvesting equipment - we had the Volvo BM and the 6 wheel Kockums! Before we got some newer equipment I used to spend my life delivering hydraulic oil to Hugh to keep the Volvo forwarder running. We used to get a Bruunett Mini forwarder in occasionally as well.
Both Hugh and Alan were ex winch operators who worked together as a cable crane team before they moved into Forwarding – there was a lot of friendly rivalry between the two of them.’
The writer recalls them both working with an Isachsen winch in the Leanachan Forest area around 1970. They were a very high productivity team brought in to help us catch up on the extraction that had fallen behind. They drove each other hard with lots of loud descriptive verbal ‘encouragement’ which sometimes could be heard a very long distance from the worksite. They were not helped by the poor radio communication systems used in those days and resorted to extremely forcefully shouted colourful instructions and vigorous hand signals to convey their communications up and down the rackways to each other.
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Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Timber harvesters, processors, forwarders and cable cranes