Some Knapdale Forest Workers
The photograph is courtesy of Fiona Green (nee Shaw) and Patricia Russell (nee Gallagher) and is of a forestry worker gang either heading off to work or near their work site in Knapdale Forest.
The people have been named by Fiona and Billy Green from the left and are:
Calum Shaw (Fiona’s Father)
Brian Walsh,
Neil Galbraith,
George McLarty,
Terry Fitzpatrick,
Billy Green,
Donald Stewart and
Alex Wright.
Fiona says “Four of this group did not live in Achnamara village.
My husband Billy Green said that the lorry was full when leaving the village in the morning and there was other transport leaving as well. There were many crofts in Knapdale where forest workers lived. Workers travelled from Lochgilphead , Cairnbaan, Kilmichael, Glassary, Tayvallich and all the small crofts”.
Knapdale Forest has a very distinctive landscape, a series of long parallel ridges running roughly north east and south west along which are successions of high rocky knolls (Knaps). Down below the slopes on either side of the ridges are lineal areas of wet boggy ground which often deepens into lochs. The ridged landscape must really have tested the plans to plant trees as ploughing would have been very piecemeal and the ground preparation must have involved a great deal of hand draining and turfing to fill in all the gaps. Forest roads to be effective needed to both run with the valleys but also cross the ridges and must have taken a few surveys to get a reasonably effective network.
Any stories of working in the forest would be very welcome.
Download Large Version (955kB)
Groups: Forestry Areas, Groups of people