Forestry Memories

Tommy Inch with workmates, Kiltarlity

Photograph courtesy of Shona Selkirk. Please seek her permission to use or copy this image.

Tommy, on the right, seizes a photobreak with is workmates. Jock "the fiery", who worked the engine is the younger man on the left, but who is in the middle?

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.

Were berets headgear of choice for sawmillers? Who is the man in the middle?

Groups: Groups of people, Sawmills, pulp mills, chipboard mills

Group: Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports - 489 pictures

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