Personal letter to Sandy Rose from John Lamb of Newton nursery
The images are courtesy of Michael Lawrence, Bankfoot, who is the grandson of Sandy Rose.
This newsy humorous personal letter was written by John A Lamb shortly after Sandy Rose and family had moved to the Bankfoot area to set up a clonal tree orchard and nursery there. Searching the limited records it appears that John Lamb was in charge of Seaton Nursery in Aberdeen from the early 1920s through to the 1930s. It may be likely that he was posted to Newton nursery during the war and retired from there circa 1954.
In the letter he mentions the snowy frosty winter followed by flooding which seems to have decimated planting operations on the hills and created a build up of plant stocks in the nursery. He commiserates with Sandy in not yet getting his ‘stripes’ possibly Forester II grade. He also indicates that F.O. is a good C.O. and assume this refers to Frank Oliver as Conservator and he having to slash forester’s budgeted expenditure. Wartime terminology has obviously moved into civilian life.
Sandy may have asked if John had a spare potential ganger for work in Bankfoot. He has no one spare but does name Jock Farquahar. Later he names J Grubb (JG) who may be a foreman at Newton. The Coull wedding is perhaps that of G Coull a forester at Newton or his daughter? John writes about the death of Tom Allan killed in a motoring accident. Tom may have been a younger Grade II forester.
See the PDFD link below for the full version.
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Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports, Northeast Scotland