Film: A Tree is Planted 1952 - Glentress Forester Training School location
The film is held by the National Library of Scotland in their Moving Image Archive and can be accessed via this link
click here
The film is summarised further below but there are brief glimpses of the following forestry operations being carried out: Measuring trees, Forest Nursery work, Draining the land, Planting a tree with a Schlich spade, Cutting bracken, Brashing trees, Marking thinnings, Felling trees, Dragging timber with a horse, Sawmill working, forestry students walking off to work.
The film runs for a lengthy period at the end on long romantic views of woodland, forest, wildlife shots, open hill and streams. This perhaps counters the more stark opening shots of felled woodlands and bare treeless hills leading up to the reason for the training of skilled foresters essential to take on the enormous forest creation task.
Below is a summary of the action and the characters as recalled by John Keenleyside who was a student at Glentress Forestry School at the time in 1952 when the original filming took place “ We were the first year students and not all were involved as the event occurred when the older exchange course students were in residence” (Second year students were all sent to various other forestry schools for period of about six to eight weeks to experience different forest, landscape and climatic situations).
John Keenleyside continues with a few additions from this moderator:
“ The two main characters are:
1. Mr J F MacIntyre - Head Forester Newcastleton in the Borders Forest. His role was to represent an experienced Head Forester with the ability of running a large State Forest and able to pass on his expertise to up and coming foresters.
2. Mike Hodgson - a forestry student in the 1951-53 class. His role was that of a young inexperienced forester learning the ropes.
The young forester is given experience of a wide number of tasks overseen by experienced forester. The young forester (Mike) is taken through a series of jobs from nursery work, to planting, to weeding and brashing, on to thinning to felling and finally sawmilling. All this to show the wide range of practical skills provided at Glentress and how they trained a generation of young foresters to carry out the large programmes being carried out both in the Forestry Commission and Private estates who had their forests denuded during World War II.
Mike Hodgson was originally from Yorkshire and on leaving Glentress in 1953 pursued a career with the Forestry Commission in South Scotland Conservancy. In the Measuring a Tree sequence, J F MacIntyre is demonstrating how to take the Quarter Girth measurement at Breast Height (4ft 3 ins).
Along with Mike in the film at this point is:
1. Brian Phillips from Raby Castle estate who had a good training at this venue in N.E. England. On completion of the course he went back to the private sector and ended up as Head Forester on one of the large estates with considerable forestry interests.
2. Andrew Gardiner - originally from Edinburgh but came to Glentress from the Forestry Commission South Scotland Conservancy. After training he went to Alice Holt and pursued a career studying Birch Trees. What did he find?
a. That Birch Trees were difficult to establish.
b. That the best chance of success was to collect seed from an area, grow stock in a nursery and return the plants as near to the seed collection site as possible.
The film moves on to nursery work (Mike featured), draining and mounding for planting and shows Mike on the drain drag or howk and it could be Alastair Allan on the rutting spade (other student not identified) followed by a planting demonstrating (J F MacIntyre and Mike). In the bracken weeding event Mike is leading, the gang working in echelon formation for safety reasons but others not identified, backs bent and heads down concentrating on locating next tree.
In the Pruning/Brashing scene along with Mike is Alistair Allan who was originally from Glasgow. He did his pre forestry school training at Knapdale Forest, West Scotland. A very active man, Alistair had leanings to the private sector and became the Head Forester at Inverewe in Wester Ross and remained there for the rest of his career. He retired to the Black Isle where he was able to pursue his love of boats and sailing.
In the hauling of small logs with Fordson tractor scene - Bill Hunter is the passenger on tractor. He was from the coal mining area of Fife and after Glentress he went to North Scotland Conservancy and served in a number of isolated locations Strome, Shin, Borgie and ended up in Sunart and retiring to the bright lights of Spean Bridge. A loyal forester to the Forestry Commission and forest area communities at all times and locations.
The sequence of the group passing the Glentress Sign shows Tom A. Robbie, Head of Forester Training School, in the foreground. The son of an early Forestry Commission forester who was in charge of Inglismaldie in the former East Scotland Conservancy (There were two with name Robbie - James A Robbie and John A Robbie?).
Tom Robbie graduated in forestry from Aberdeen University and was appointed as a District Officer in North Scotland Conservancy in the Great Glen area. He later served in Timber Control before moving to Glentress Forester Training School in the late 1940s. He was in charge at the time of the closure of Glentress Training School in 1953 and transferring the training facilities to Faskally at Pitlochry (Faskally had been a base for Hydro electric engineers at the time of the dam and tunnel building and offered superior accommodation to that of the Nissen huts).
Tom Robbie was Assistant Conservator in West Scotland when he retired in the early 1970s and then followed his other interests including the use of tree bark for horticultural mulching and for children’s play areas. He purchased bark for a small company from the Ari Sawmill in Strachur
and sold it to local government bodies. He also took on the role as Horticulture Trades Association Representative for Scotland and visited Nurseries, Garden Centres and Retail outlets throughout Scotland for a number of years.
Still with the group passing the Glentrees sign, the student with light coloured hair at the front is Arkle Fraser who started in Dornoch nursery and later moved to Findon in the Black Isle. Following on he had subsequent postings to Rumster, Sunart, Inchnacardoch and ended up as Forest District Manager at Dornoch Forest District. A very competent forester Arkle had an unassailable knowledge of the multitude of Forestry Commission accounting and procedures codes. One of his life’s key missions was to get inside critical information, well ahead of the game, on what was likely to happen in Forestry Commission forest management or staff moves. Also a very competent driver, Arkle traversed the single track and very winding roads of north and west Scotland, at what some passengers (and other on coming drivers), considered motorway speeds. No need to visit fairground thrill rides for your white knuckle experience if you worked with Arkle. As one Caithness forest worker observed ‘he was always out of the vehicle before it stopped’!
The next after Tom Robbie is forestry student William Bartholomew who originated from the Glasgow area. He was the youngest in that class coming to us after National service in the Navy. He was keen on nursery work and had a career in nursery management ending up in charge of the large Wykeham Forest Commission Nursery in North Yorkshire where he saw it through the various stages of mechanisation and weed control”.
Any comments and more names very welcome.
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