Annual Report Dingwall District (West) 1980-81
The report is courtesy of Inverness, Ross and Skye forest District and lists the main activities and comments on the work for year April 1980 – March 1981. The document was written up by George Dey (District officer) from individual forest reports submitted from the foresters in charge of Skye, Torrachilty, Achnashellach and South Strome Forests. The District officers’ reports would be compiled to complete the annual report for the North Conservancy and then placed in files and forgotten about!
The documents begin with a note from Conservancy Office requesting the Annual Report by a certain date. Names listed are some of those in the Conservancy Office (60 Church Street, Inverness) and is written by R B (Eric) Urquhart who may have been assistant to T S B (Tom) Macbeath (Admin and Finance Officer), copied to same and to A F (Allan) Mackay (Assist Conservator Harvesting and Marketing), Arthur Bramwell (Assistant Conservator Forest Management role) , Alan Flynn (Conservancy Estates Officer), Peter Malcolmson (Conservancy Civil Engineer), John Martin (Conservancy Mechanical Engineer).
Linda Swanson headed up the drawing office.
One notable point in the staff situation was the ban on recruitment and the industrial workforce for the District dropped from 91 to 80 over the full year. George Dey, Bob Murdoch, Jim Colling and John Spittal attended various training courses. Disposal of housing stock in full swing with 5 houses sold.
In the planting programme some mentions of deaths attributed to use of ‘dipped’ plants in new planting. Unusual to require dipped plants for new planting? Frequent fires and some losses mentioned and demonstrations on the use of PLM Helicopters in fire fighting. High number of wooden pokers (13176) sent from Skye to Aluminium Smelter (Kinlochleven?). Fort William Pulp Miill stops intake of wood and programmes suffer until start of some export markets to Scandinavia.
Bob Murdoch lists the names of some forestry workers – S Keenan and Chris MacDonald but none listed elsewhere this year. He also mentions collection of a small quantity of Native Scots pine seed from the Golden Valley that was sent to Dornoch Nursery for production of plants for Achnashellach only. Tim Taylor mentions the replacement of the Jonsereds 621 Chainsaw with the Husqvarna 162 claiming the latter to be a more superior saw.
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