Tommy Inch with a working horse
Photograph courtesy of Shona Selkirk. Please seek her permission to use or copy this image.
Tommy Inch, with the hat on, with "Dot" McLeod, the horse handler and a working Clydesdale, name unknown.
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.
Do you remember horses being used in forestry? When did the practice cease?
Groups: Horses at work in Forests, Sawmills, pulp mills, chipboard mills