Career in Forestry promotion material – Sketch portrait by D R MacGregor
This watercolour sketch was passed on from the family of Tom A Robbie who was the Forestry Training School principal at Glentress 1947-1953 and also at Faskally 1953-1955 and thereafter in Conservancy Office appointments in Scotland. The items were brought to the attention of Forestry Memories by Mairi McGeachy, Business Support Manager, Aberfoyle Office.
This appears to be a draft image for inclusion in a potential forestry career recruitment publication. Details are not known but it is assumed that this was drawn while Tom Robbie was still working in the forester training schools.
This image is of the forester in the distinctive red collared jacket with crowns supervising a stock fencing job in some forest edge location. The technical details of the fence and fencing tools are very precise and correct even down to the roll of net awaiting the attention of the fencer and the tying off of the wire around the strainer. One could surmise this was drawn from a photograph or that the artist had some experience in forestry work!
The assistance of readers to identify D R MacGregor and the period that this work was produced would be very much appreciated. Note that there are several images on this site depicting typical supervision tasks that a forester might be expected to be involved in during the course of his duties – forest nursery work, fencing, marking trees for thinning. See Picture Numbers 5352 to 5356 for the full set.