Not the coal fields! pricking seagull eggs and twisting winds
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Tom was born in County Tipperary in Ireland, where his father was a farmer – and where Tom’s early career ideas began, in the nearby estate forest of approx 1,000 acres. It was a favourite Sunday afternoon haunt, observing fallow deer, pheasants, badgers and foxes; Tom would often see foresters in the area, and thought he would like to either farm or take up forestry. After leaving school, he took a part-time job in the forestry department. However, the outbreak of war in 1939 changed plans temporarily, with Tom joining the RAF in Northern Ireland. In 1947, he was demobbed and went home, and resumed his forestry career, starting as a trainee forester in East Anglia at the UK’s largest man-made forest.
Then he was posted to Wales. Tom says every student was asked to volunteer for the posting, but no-one did, including him: “When I thought of Wales, I thought of coalfields in South Wales!” Following three years (1951-1954) at Clun forest (which lay across the borders of Shropshire and Montgomeryshire), Tom was transferred to Dyfi forest. As he explains: “It was the tradition to move foresters to gain experience of new areas and people.”
During subsequent years, Tom’s forestry experienced increased with postings to other areas.
He finally came to Newborough in 1980, when the forest was more than 30 years old.
He was introduced to local history by Bob Griffiths, who
described how onshore winds had caused sands to drift inland, close to
Newborough (even the bus sometimes couldn’t travel on the roads) and Marram
grass was planted as a seed bed along the shore to stabilise the dunes, prevent
erosion and repair damage.
By the 1980s, natural regeneration had set in, and the environment was more
settled with woody shrubs, although Tom remembers the challenges of rabbits
burrowing everywhere and seagulls nesting in the dunes, where their population
was controlled by pricking eggs in the nests.
Tom was responsible for forestry operations on Anglesey, directing a team of 16-18 men across Newborough and Pentraeth. He remembers the first time he went down the forest road to the beach, which he thought was “fantastic!” He felt Newborough was special, as people didn’t expect trees to grow under those exposed conditions: “The winds seem to come from all directions. The bungalow where we lived had its television aerials frequently twisted like pieces of string.”
A typical day as Head Forester included regular office work, plus fencing, and work on the A55 road construction, where duties included marking off sites and tree and verge planting, although seedling were brought in from away. In the forest, felling was more clear-cutting of areas rather than thinning – although Tom “never thought I’d be doing that. I used to get lost in the forest because it had changed – it’s a different world when it becomes cleared.”
Hand tools (pickaxes, shovels, spades) were used for fencing and putting up barbed wire and netting. Litter was a problem on the beach, especially glass bottles. “It was amazing the things that would come in with the tide!” He would watch visitors to the beach “enjoying the entire day on the beach, although not often venturing to Llanddwyn as there weren’t many walkers at that time. They came for the beach, not to walk in the forest.”