Willie Cameron - a Sutherland man and Forester
Willie’s sudden death aged 89 in November 2014 brings to mind his life and career in forestry in an era of Head Foresters in charge and the days of rapid forestry expansion under the plough in North Scotland. Born in Sutherland and the fact that he spent a large part of his forestry career in that same county was remarkable.
Willie, the son of a shepherd, was actually born in Glen Loth but when his father took over the large hirsel at Gruids Estate, Lairg, it was there, from the age of two, that Willie and his two siblings lived. As a young man he worked at several jobs including the brick works at Lairg but after his mother had an accident he was called upon to mind house for some time and help his father with the lambing. From 1941 to 1943 he was working on the Estate when his call up papers arrived and joined the Royal Engineers at Buxton and from there was posted to the Glasgow docks which were at the time inundated with shiploads of timber imports from Canada. Willie later transferred to Billingham, as a member of the Pioneer Corps where he was part of the team of ‘Smokey Joes’ manning the Hasler machines that created enormous volumes of smoke by burning a mixture of oil and water to hide the nearby ICI factory. His Pioneer duties took him to Aramanche in Normandy, to Aalos in Belgium,the Rhine area, and several more shunts but VJ night found him near Hamburg when a Glaswegian appeared playing a set of bagpipes and they both then passed the evening each playing their favourite tunes. His final grading was Quarter Master Sergeant in charge of stores, food and clothing before demob in Aug 1947 and safe journey home to Lairg.
Applying to the Forestry Commission for a job Willie thought his army career was continuing when he ended up a few weeks later in a two roomed WW1 hut used as a bothy at Auchterawe, Fort Augustus. Two of his bothy colleagues at that time were John MacLeod and David Robertson (latterly foresters i/c Sunart and Skye respectively). Willie passed the Forester Training School entrance exam but qualifying as a ganger at Aucherawe before that, he was posted to Farigaig Forest as a ganger under forester Murdo Macrae (ex Lewis) to complete his pre Forestry School training. One of his responsibilities was managing a gang felling the birch trees that covered part of Farigaig Forest at that time. The trees were cut into logs and sold at roadside to a firewood merchant called Montgomery who blocked the timber and sold it as firewood around the area. The area was afterwards planted of course with conifers!
On completing his two years of pre- school training Willie enrolled into Benmore Forestry Training School near Dunoon in 1949 along with 19 other students and thought the standard of accommodation was good but the quality of the food much less so. Archie Douglas from Aberfeldy was Willie’s roommate and his student colleagues included John MacLeod (also at Auchterawe), Hamish Reid, Bob Thomson, Don Wood, John Doran to name but a few of those who went on to become foresters or emigrate overseas. The Principal at Benmore was the redoubtable Harry Watson (who had been there since it opened in the early 1930s) aided and assisted by two teaching foresters Alec McLaren and Walter Scott. Many trips to Dunoon, 6-7 miles distant, enabled Willie to indulge in old time dancing on a Saturday night in the Town Hall, a pastime he always loved.
Benmore successfully behind him Willie’s next home in 1951 was a caravan at Cannich where he was allocated a job as an ex-school ganger in Affric Forest. He had only been there about a year when the bothy in the Black Isle closed and all the inmates were transferred to Affric Forest to live in a another bothy which had been an accommodation unit recently vacated by the men building the hydro dams. At this time also Andrew MacKay came from Ratagan as the Head Forester and Willie was graded up to a Forester. In 1954 Willie was given the keys to a forestry bungalow and as by this time his parents had retired they came to live with him. Willie told a story of carrying out a hill ploughing and draining operation with tractor and plough in a forestry planting area behind the Affric Hotel which unknown to Willie was the location of the main water supply pipes to the Hotel, Comar Farm and several private houses. All went well until the evitable happened and everything was drained!
Following promotion to Head Forester Willie was sent in 1957 to take over the long established Gleyloy Forest near Fort William at the start of thinning and felling operations which required many new roads to be constructed. At this time there were a number of contractors using heavy horses to drag timber on the flatter areas and lighter ponies on the steep slopes. It was here that he met up with Finlay MacRae who was the District Officer for the area based in Torlundy assisted at the time by Jock Mackintosh. Finlay mentioned several country dancing venues to Willie and from this time onwards the two remained lifelong friends with shared passions in forestry and piping. While at Glenloy, Willie carried out relief forester duties in the nearby areas of Clunes, Glen Nevis and Leanachan Forests and made friends with Hugh Morrison of Glen Righ Forest who likewise taught country dancing at classes.
In 1963 there was a change around of foresters with Wilfred Lawson taking charge of Glenloy for a short time until his untimely death to be followed on by Ted Saunders. Willie returned north and set up base in Oykel Forest which had been vacated by Hugh Mackay. This forest was initially centred on the village of Rosehall, where the forester’s house was located, with forest areas on both sides of the Oykel River and up as far an Einig but later acquisitions at Loucroy, Craggie and then Cromalt heralded the era of rapid forest expansion in the area. Willie was joined by Gordon Watson as his assistant forester and the situation remained thus until the creation of a Chief Forester post at Shin Forest under Alex Lockhart which entailed the amalgamation of the former forest units of Balblair, Craigs, Carbisdale and Oykel into the very much enlarged Shin Forest. Prior to this point there were also separate individual forest units at Borgie, Strathy, Naver, Helmsdale, Rumster and Dunnet employing over 300 workers including the mobile ploughing and road squads.
Helmsdale Forest was the next forest in Willie’s career after he swapped locations with Willie Patience in 1971 and he thus then managed forests in the very area of his birth. Shortly after this time Willie married Jean Robertson and the house was large enough to allow his now very elderly parents to live with them. It was a single forester post with four permanent workers and a series of widely scattered forest blocks which was easily managed until fire danger time and then it virtually entailed 24 hour duty seven days a week! Jean recalls that when initially discussing their marriage date, she hoped for a spring wedding but that was judged to be too risky and they ended up getting married in the frost and snow of the fire safe month of January! In 1981 Willie was asked to take charge of Naver Forest which at the time had a large planting programme and its office and house located in Bettyhill. Here Willie had two assistant foresters, Colin Morgan and Keith Mills and in the office Jenny Johnston who carried out the clerical duties all covering the former forest units of Borgie, Naver and Strathy. Jean who was a teacher in Dornoch Academy remembered Jenny Johnston (nee Mackay) well as she was one of her former pupils at the Academy. Jean and the two boys also moved but to their house Broomfield in Rogart as in 1981 Jean was again teaching full time. At weekends depending on fire danger and other responsibilities Willie would either commute down or Jean and family travel up to Bettyhill. And so in 1985 after 38 years in the Forestry Commission plus 4 army years Willie retired and having saved as many holidays as possible was able to miss out much of that season’s fire duty by finishing work in March.
Looking back on Willie’s life people remember his passion and great interest in all things forestry and piping, his great loyalty to the Commission, his humour and recall of past people and stories. One typical recount concerned Wilfred Lawson prior to his move to Glenloy. Around the late 1950s Wilfred Lawson, a forester at Balblair Forest, was one of a quite a large number of foresters to attend a meeting in the Conservancy Office. The subject came around to houses and condition of housing for foresters. Wilfred at that time was staying in Dairy Cottage near Carbisdale. He got to his feet at the meeting and robustly claimed that he was living in a byre. Nicholson the senior estate or administrative officer countered by saying ‘Oh come now - we have done a lot to that building’. Wilfred’s reply ‘Yes indeed - you put the cattle out!’
Willie had a long productive retirement, a life with little illness and with his wife Jean and sons Donald and Ruairidh a happy family life which was further enhanced with the arrival of three grandchildren. Indeed he was a Sutherland man and forester!
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Groups: Forestry Areas