Jarratt - Letters From Beauly: Pat Hennessy and the Canadian Forestry Corps in Scotland, 1940-1945

Acknowledgements

Many people and organizations helped make this book become a reality, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for their assistance. Thank you to Dr. Marc Milner, director of the Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society at the University of New Brunswick, for his support in documenting this otherwise untold part of New Brunswicks military heritage. With Marcs blessing, Matt Douglass, a summer student at the Gregg Centre, spent the better part of a week during the summer of 2012 at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa photographing the war diaries of 15 Company and No. 5 District Headquarters, without which so many delicious nuggets of information about the CFC would never have been known. Thanks to Brent Wilson, my editor, whose encouragement and sunny optimism every time I spoke to him about my struggles finishing this book gave me the incentive I needed to keep on task at times when I felt there was no end in sight.

Thanks also to my copy editor, Barry Norris, whose fine hand smoothed out the wrinkles in this story, and to Goose Lane Editions for its continued partnership with the Gregg Centre and the New Brunswick Military Heritage series. And thanks to Bob Dallison, historian and fellow author in the series, who saw a story in my grandfathers letters.

Thanks to the New Brunswick Arts Board for financial support in the form of a Creation Category B grant, which enabled me to travel to Scotland and interview the descendants of the many Scots who had befriended my grandfather. Being on the ground in Beauly and meeting the people whose ancestors he came to know gave me a very different perspective on the Canadians in Scotland during the Second World War.

To my friend Alasdair Cameron of Muir of Ord, Scotland, thank you for your patience and gracious assistance in unravelling the many threads of the CFC story in the Highlands, and for your frequent editorial input and personal commitment to making sure the CFCs contribution to the Second World War is never forgotten. Through Alasdairs personal network of contacts, I received permission from Anne Gloag, present-day owner of Beaufort Castle, for a personal guided tour of the castle and grounds, bringing me back to the wartime Christmas Eves when the CFC men were invited to midnight Mass. Through Alasdair, I was introduced to Ron McLean, Tommy MacKenzie, and David McLean, who brought me on a tour of what remains of the former Lovat No. 2 Camp at Boblainy. Alasdair also introduced me to the wonderful people at Archaeology for Communities in the Highlands (ARCH), Scotland, who shared their groundbreaking research into the military history of the Highlands and the archaeological footprint left behind by the Canadians, including Novar House, where the Canadians would travel by lorry to transport Wrens to CFC dance halls during the war.

Thank you to my cousins Patsy Hennessy and Sharon Olscamp, who spent the winter of 2009 scanning every single letter and archival document related to our grandfathers experiences in Scotland. To Patsy, a huge thank you for your help over the years answering the endless questions, doing research, and going above and beyond to tell our grandfathers story. Thank you, too, to my brother Peter for finding the archival documents in boxes and chests and garbage bags that were stashed away in the attic of the Hennessy Estate in Bathurst and for having the foresight to save the documents when it would have been so much easier to throw them away.

Special thanks to the late Fred and Lucy Hubbard, who so graciously opened their hearts and home to me on the many occasions when I visited them to learn more about Freds late brother, Lieutenant Alleyne Hubbard of 15 Company. Also to their daughter Liz (Hubbard) Cantlie and her husband Colin for their generous financial support of the work that went into transcribing the hundreds of pages of archival letters and nearly three thousand pages of war diaries that form the backbone of this book. Without their financial assistance, I could not have untangled the archival record of 15 Company in Beauly. Thanks also to Fred and Lucys son Allan and Rothesay Netherwood School.

In Scotland and Canada, much thanks to the children, grandchildren, great-nieces and nephews, cousins, and in-laws who were eager to share the stories of their Scottish relatives, neighbours, and friends during the war years. These include Alice MacDonald and Duncan (and his wife Irene) Fraser of Beauly (children of John Lee and Alice Fraser); Diane MacGillivary of Inverness (granddaughter of Don and Hannah Fraser); Rosie (Fraser) Nixon of Inverness (daughter of Alfred Blizzard, Sr.); Richard Fraser, Rosies cousin, formerly of Beauly; David and Penny Cook of Inverness and Davids brothers and sisters Pearl, Jim, Roderick, Arnett, Angela, and Charles (children of Arnett and Margaret Cook); Allan Sellar of Inverness (cousin of Barbara (Morrison) Pearce; the Pearce sisters, Sandra, Betty, Christine, Evelyn, and Dorothy, (daughters of Barbara and Peter Pearce of Beauly); Jack Johnstone of Beauly (son of Lily Johnstone); Emelie Gillies of Beauly (sister of Lily Johnstone); Jessie Poleworth of Inverness (daughter of Charles Humphries); and Alma Fraser of Beauly, who lives in the croft where Hannah Fraser grew up. Thank you to Denise and Patricia LaViolette (nieces of Zoel and Mairi LaViolette) for helping to piece together the story of their aunt and uncle in Scotland and Canada; and to Rosalind (Pallot) Pett (daughter of Edward and Margaret Pallott) for confirming the details of her parents wartime experience in Beauly.

Also, many thanks to the few remaining CFC men whom I was able to interview, and to their war brides, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, and in-laws who shared what they knew of the CFC story: Sewell Shaw of Woodstock (4 Company); the late Milford Kinney of Perth-Andover (4 Company); the late Alfred Blizzard, Jr., son of Alfred Blizzard, Sr. of Fredericton Junction (15 Company); George Campbell of Fredericton (25 Company); Jack Rutledge, nephew of Major Ralph S. Holmes of Doaktown (17 Company); Clair (Whelton) McCain, daughter of Bedford Whelton (15 Company); the late Joey Whelton, wife of Bedford Whelton; Betty Hudson, daughter of Hubert Gee (15 Company); Dolly Gunning, wife of Charlie Gunning (15 Company); Wendy Anderson, daughter of George Condley (15 Company); Martha McCrae, sister of Duncan Campbell (15 Company); Karen Campbell, daughter-in-law of Duncan Campbell; the late Dr. Blair Orser, son of Arnold Orser (No. 5 District Headquarters, CFC); and Marie (OToole) Roy, daughter of Eddie OToole (15 Company). Thanks also to Kathleen Forsythe, daughter of Fred Cogswell (15 Company), for the photographs of her father during his service in the CFC.

In Beauly, many thanks to the MacIntosh brothers and sisters, Jeannie, Tommy, and Christine, whose childhood memories of 15 Companys camp at Lovat No. 2 brought a unique perspective on the Forestry Corps story. In Eskadale, thanks go to Mrs. Jessie Matheson, caretaker of St. Marys, who kindly took me on a personal tour of the famed Lovat family church that played such an important part in my grandfathers Scottish experience.

Thank you to Val Sweeney, journalist with the Inverness Courier, whose articles on my research helped bring more stories of the CFC to my attention.

Thanks to Drusilla Fraser, wife of the late Hugh Fraser MP, who so graciously welcomed us to Balblair House in Beauly when we showed up unexpectedly on a sunny July day with a story about my grandfathers having been the cook there during the Second World War. And thanks to Joe Gibbs, owner of Phoineas House, the wartime headquarters of CFC operations in Scotland, who took time from a very busy day preparing for the annual Belladrum festival to show us a prized photograph of the Canadian officers who were stationed there during the war.