Tommy Inch on a sawn wood stack
Photograph courtesy of Shona Selkirk. Please seek her permission to use or copy this image.
This shot is of Tommy Inch around 1935 where he is standing on top of a stack of sawn timber that could be destined for second grade railway sleepers.
In the distance, immediately behind, a horseman can be seen following two horses pulling empty sledges back up into the wood to collect more trees for the sawmill. The horseman must be working them with voice control only. Most likely the horses know the track both up and down requiring only commands for stopping and turning to pick up certain trees. They would certainly have short reins the ends of which would be slung over the hems on the collar.
Born in 1907, in Culburnie, near Kiltarlity, Tommy Inch started his forestry career working with Frank Sime’s sawmill, Balgate, Kiltarlity probably around 1925. He worked as a sawmiller, both around the Beauly area and further afield, usually for Sime. Later he managed “Tommy’s Mill”, Fanellan, for Sime for a number of years, until injury precipitated his retirement, in 1960. He then worked, freelance, for Crichton, in Beauly. He set up as a subcontractor in 1963, employing three men - Dave Innes, Bob Reid and Alec Campbell - until his retirement in 1969.
That area around Kiltarlity was a hotbed of forestry activity during the war. According to Tommy’s daughter, Shona Selkirk, to whom Forestry Memories is indebted, Tommy spoke about both the Canadian lumber camp and also the “Poles Camp” below Teanacoil House.
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Groups: Forestry in Action, Groups of people, Horses at work in Forests, Sawmills, pulp mills, chipboard mills