Achnamara Village – Knapdale Forest
Achnamara Village – Knapdale Forest
The photograph is courtesy of Fiona Green and is a lovely photographic study of her father, Calum Shaw, on the right and Patrick (Paddy) Gallagher on the left outside No 10 Achnamara (Patrick and his family’s home).
Calum, a Jura man, moved to Achnamara in 1953 with his wife Eileen, son Malcolm and daughter Fiona from a private estate south of Tayvallich where he worked as a gamekeeper. The family moved into what was an almost newly built forest village of 24 timber houses joining families from many parts Scotland and wider afield to take on forestry work in Knapdale Forest.
The forest was actually started about 1930 and by 1960 over 7000 acres was planted and harvesting and forest roads were in the planning stages. Calum worked at all sorts of everyday tasks in the forest including planting, brashing, weeding/cleaning, growing plants, draining and much else.
Fiona recalls “He never complained about his work. When we moved to Achnamara in 1953 the men worked 5 1/2 days a week. They were picked up from the village in a lorry driven by Duncan Ferguson”
No doubt the transport also picked up men from the outlying crofts and houses all meeting in a central reporting point or office before heading out to the various work sites in the transport. Large squads were broken up into gangs of anywhere from two or three men up to ten men, each gang lead by a ganger (Calum being one) and worked on allocated tasks or on certain areas of the forest. Tragically Calum died just before retirement age in 1975 after a lifetime of work.
Calum was a member of the Royal Scottish Forestry Society but his big passion was his garden at No 17 Achnamara and in it growing vegetables and flowers. Some of his skills in the garden can be seen in the photograph attached to the PDF below this text. It also contains an image of Calum in the garden with his grandson and behind him are the creels that he made and used for catching lobsters and crabs out from Keills, Tayvallich in the summer months. Calum did not drive but was taken by his son Malcolm who had returned to live in the village from 1966 and worked in Knapdale Forest until 1973/74 before moving to Invergordon.
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Groups: Buildings in Forests, Forestry Areas, Groups of people