Timber Haulage
Well, Glen Moriston was always a great glen for timber. when I was a boy there were quite a few horse drawn wagons with timber came down the glen. And we had two 30 hundredweight lorries carting it down, and we carted it down to the pier head, and the railway. So, some it went by boat from the pier, and some it went by rail from Fort Augustus station. That was pre-war.
Then eh.... there was always some timber going, but about 1965 they opened the pulp mill at Fort William. And I had a contract with the pulp mill which kept two big lorries going. They were fit to carry twenty tons. Sometimes they carried more. They went into the wood with their big articulated lorry complete with Hiab hydraulic loader. And they loaded up, self loading, and drove to Fort William. I did that for ten years or so I suppose, and I sold out to Ogilvie who also did it.
But I was seeing the pulp mill wasn't going to last, which it didn't. When we started in the pulp mill, we got a cheque regularly on the 21st of the month following. So we were one month and three weeks lying out. So that went on fine and that was alright. And eh.... they were getting slower and slower paying, and they were getting very slow paying, which was a bad sign. And it wasn't easy for me to have two lorries working for two months and my bills had to be paid, but I wasn't getting my money. Which meant several thousand pounds lying out, which was a lot of money at that time. So I was also selling petrol at the filling station at the same time. And the pulp mill's credit charges were blackballed. So I thought oh oh, I better get out of this before I get caught. So I sold out to Ogilvie, and eh.... breathed a sigh of relief.
Jimmy Steele worked for me for manys a year, and Alasdair MacDonald who came from Golspie. Jimmy always had to have a bigger load than anybody else. The lorry was supposed to carry twenty tons. No.... it was supposed to carry less than that, about fifteen tons. Anyway, he had to have a bigger load than anybody else, and eventually he came out of the forest with thirty tons load on top of a lorry. So, the forestry went spare, and they said oh! can't have that! And they put notice out that every bridge was ten ton limited. That wouldn't take the empty lorry across. anyway, they took no notice at all of that, but he never took another big load like that out of it.
But his mate Alasdair MacDonald wasn't much better. One had to be better than the other. You could set your watch by them passing here at seven o' clock in the morning. Summer and winter! Going up there in the dark! And they both had to be first. But Alasdair's lorry; he would put a big load on. I says don't overload it. And would they? They wouldn't put less on. No, no! So you know the bolsters that run up the side of the load, I took a foot off the top of them. Now, you'll not overload that. But they would spend more time rounding the load at the top to carry as much as possible. and they weren't getting bonus for that! I gave them a bonus for the loads. I thought they'd spend less time loading. But no, no! So they would break springs and burst tyres and... och, it didn't pay to overload. Besides that it was illegal. And things were getting tight in that line too, they were checking on the weight the lorries were carrying. But, we got away with it. You could always say you were loading up in the woods and you don't know what you've got on and where's the weighbridge; at the end of your journey. We knew fine we had too much load on. But, on it went.
Ach they were good times too. If they were going well for a whole week, everything going nicely, no problems, I would be saying to myself, now that's fine, we'll make some money now. And something hellish would go wrong then. Not only the lorries breaking down, but there'd be a war about the stacking of the timber and.... oh God, I don't know, whatnot..... bad roads. There was once there was a good big fall of snow. There was more than six inches maybe even a foot. So I told them to go home, not to go out to the wood for a load. Oh they couldn't do that. I says I'll pay you the day's work. Oh the two of them would go together in one lorry and get a load out. So, they finished up in the ditch, and burst a tyre and a spring. So I paid them and paid for the damage as well. Not happily! We pulled it out with the other lorry when the snow went away a bit. We managed. Oh they'd get the lorry out of the ditch alright.
One lorry went upside down another time. Out right off the road. In the bog. At the edge of the road. The road must have gave way under it, too big a load. So, there she was upside down, so we just cut the chains and let the load fall off. And with the other lorry attached to it, rolled it back up onto the road. And filled it back up with oil again and water, it had poured out. And set it up and loaded up again with timber. And the only thing that was wrong with the lorry (apart from the cab was full of oil where it had poured out of the engine when she was upside down) it broke a mirror, a driving mirror. And otherwise, the lorry was undamaged. Because it went into the soft bog. Fun and games!