Duncan Munro Story, Part 2
30 April 2008
My father, about the year 1935. has a sawmill at Ben Braggie which was situated about half a mile north of the Duke of Sutherland’s monument. One time a problem arose which was that the sawmill was too far away from the wood that it was not possible to keep the mill in logs. Since the sawmill was operated by a contractor who was paid by what he produced, and he had several men to pay, the shortage of logs was a big problem.There were two options to solving this problem. One was to move the sawmill nearer the wood or get another horse to increase the input of logs. There were due deliberations about these options and eventually it was decided that another horse was the answer. There was a local crofter who was looking for a job, so that was very convenient and he lived nearby. The next thing was to purchase a horse and there was a Clydesdale advertised in the Northern Times newspaper at a farm called Rovie about six miles from Golspie. My father and his head horseman went to see the horse and since it was school summer holidays, I was taken along. The horse proved to be very suitable and a deal was made. On snag was that the horse had no shoes as it had not been worked for some time and they were not necessary. The question was how to get him to a smithy to be shod and as the owner said he was a very quiet and biddable horse, it was quite suitable for me to take him to the smithy, making sure to keep him on the grass verge at the roadside so as not to damage his hooves. This I did and duly arrived at the smithy. The smith scratched his head and said he was completely out of shoeing iron as his supplier had let him down. He was very disappointed by this as he knew my father was needing to put the horse to work the next day.
Eventually he grabbed a coil of fencing wire and asked me to follow him. There was an iron gate leading into a field which belonged to him and he asked me to catch one end of it and the two of us removed it. He then used the fence wire to make the field stockproof and we carried the iron gate to the smithy, where he removed the top and bottom rails and made a set of shoes out of them. He then asked me to have a cup of tea. He lived alone and his kitchen was like his smithy. He threw some dry wood below the hanging kettle and with a splash of paraffin there was a good fire going in no time. He made some good strong tea and then he disappeared into a nearby pub and I delivered the horse and I delivered the horse and went home with my father. So ended one of my first adventures.
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