HISTORY OF THE DISTILLERY
1914-1917
Maltbarns converted into makeshift barracks
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HISTORY OF THE DISTILLERY
1914-1917
Maltbarns converted into makeshift barracks
The First War: The daily routine at the distillery started the year in its normal way. The regular staff stood at twelve men, headed by Alexander Smart the brewer/manager and seconded by George Ross, who had risen to the position of mashman. As usual the malting began to wind down in the May with the last mash being on 8th June. The final preparations for the silent season were completed in early July when five of the men cleaned the soot from the boiler and kiln flues. This event marked the traditional end of the year and, though a dirty and difficulty job, was keenly anticipated as a chance of earning some extra cash before the summer lay-offs (each of the men who helped with the cleaning received an additional 5/- for the half day which it normally took and were also given the rest of the day off). It was a hot, messy job, the men often working half-naked to avoid dirtying their daily clothes in the near darkness of the boiler room and flues, sweeping out the soot. They had no masks or filters and their eyes watered continuously from the grit and the sulphur. The abiding memory of some of the men involved in the job is that they would spit black for a couple of weeks after. Apart from the extra cash the men were given an extra dram after their work and, as the distillery almost always had a plentiful supply of hot water, they were able to have a bath: the whole day had something of a festive air as later photographs of the cleaning team show. With four weeks of the shut-down Britain and her allies were at war with Germany and the Austrian Empire.
The outbreak of war in August 1914 did not have an obvious immediate effect on the distillery, but by the autumn, when preparations should have been underway for the re-starting of production, it became apparent that all was not unchanged. Some of the men had joined up in the army in the first rush of enthusiasm for the war as, when malting finally got underway in November (one month later than usual), Willie Macleod the maltman and the two firemen, James Munro and Thomas Mackay, had gone. The first mash of the 1914-15 season was made on 2nd December, but a level approximately half of what it had been in the previous season. Work seemed otherwise to progress as normal, but by early 1915 it was clear that things could not continue in this way. After only six months of production mashing ceased, the final job being undertaken on 29th April. Eight days earlier the local newspaper, the Invergordon Times, reported that the town council of Tain had voted unanimously to ask Government to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquor for the duration of the War. There had been various moves towards prohibition since the outbreak of hostilities and in December 1914 the newspapers had reported that the local authorities, in a move to curb drunkenness amongst its own men, had instructed that the closing hour of all licenced premises be cut back to 8pm. Luckily, however, despite placing restrictions on the amounts of liquor being produced (to save grain stocks) it was decided that strict prohibition would be counter-productive and probably harmful to morale.
No whisky was made at the distillery from the end of April until the first week in December. This seven month silent season had a double cause; barley was in reduced supply and needed for food father than alcohol production; the distillery itself was being used for other purposes. The staff had been reduced to seven at the end of April with the laying off of the maltmen and the firemen. The young clerk, Peter Ross, had been kept on and helped with odd-jobs over the summer and in September assisted with the harvest on Morangie Farm. By the autumn, however, the distillery found itself unable to recruit the young men into the maltbarns - it was reported that by the end of 1915 over 75% of local men aged 15-35 were serving in the Forces. Admittedly, there was less barley to malt than in a usual season, but over the winter High MacLeod the head maltman worked nights as well, so short-staffed had the distillery become.
In March 1915 the Scottish Rifles were training on Morrich More, having gained permission from the councillors of Tain to dig trenches in the waste areas well away from the town grazing, and in the Invergordon Times for 14th July 1915 we learn that a committee of ladies had been formed in the burgh to organise "entertainment’s and temperance refreshments for the members of the Brigade encamped on the Morrich". While some of these recruits were living under canvas out on the moor others were slightly luckier and has a solid roof over their heads.
Alice Ross, George’s daughter, remembers that recruits for the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were billeted at the distillery, the maltbarns being converted into makeshift barracks for the duration of the summer. Others were billeted for the summer in the school in Tain and had not left when term resumed in the autumn, so lessons had to be held in the town hall. This arrangement continued each summer for the remainder of the War, so the maltbarns were needed throughout the good weather down to the end of October. The barns were ideal for barracks, having plenty of free floor space and there was an ample water supply near at hand (but not much else). Temporary latrine tents and baths were put on the flat area now occupied by the bonds, but all the cooking was carried out in great cauldron-like pots over fires in the open. The pots seemed to Alice to be always on the fire and, if the stew tasted as bad as it smelled, mealtimes cannot have been looked forward to by the recruits. The NCOs and officers responsible for the training were based more or less permanently in or around Tain and had more comfortable quarters. Alice’s mother took in a sergeant and his wife as lodgers and also one of the officers for a while. One thing that Alice remembered very clearly were the trains that used to come into the distillery siding at midnight to ship the men off to the front and the new fresh-faced batch that would take their place a few days later.
In early 1917 though things were starting to return to normal. Production had increased and the workforce had risen in January to a more healthy level of ten men. But this proved to be a false summer for by the following month men were again leaving - two from the maltbarns, and Gordon Smart himself left in March to join the Flying Corps. The last production was run through on 25th April and, after the routine cleaning-up in June, the workforce was cut back to a skeleton of three men (Alex Smart, George Ross and John Bett) who were to run the distillery on a care and maintenance basis until 1919. No whisky was produced at all during this time but stock continued to be released from the bonds to various customers and George and John switched from their normal jobs to cooperage work.
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