Gunnar Engberg Godwin

1915 - 1998

Autobiography

Gunnar Godwin, one-time Forestry Commission Conservator in the then North-East England Conservancy and subsequently of the then East Scotland Conservancy, was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire on the 5th of June 1915. His parents were the Icelander Jóakim Gudbjartsson and his Danish wife Helga Engberg. He attended the Department of Forestry at Edinburgh University from 1932 to 1935 under Professor Stebbing, collecting six class medals and graduated B.Sc. Forestry in 1935. As part of the course he worked in various forests in vacations, including Atholl Estate in Scotland, and this gave him an abiding interest in Scotland and Scottish forests. After graduating, he was taken on in a temporary capacity by the Forestry Commission, first as assistant to Jock Maxwell Macdonald in Dumfriesshire followed by miscellaneous survey work based on Edinburgh. A year later he was sent to North Scotland to work as a surveyor and part-time forest worker at Glen Loy and Nevis forests, followed by some months on the Sample Plot party under Alex MacKenzie. He then moved to the south of England to do some preliminary survey work in preparation for the 1938 Census of Woodlands, on which he worked as a surveyor under Jack Chard. In September 1939 on the outbreak of war he was posted to South Wales to work on the then Timber Control (later Timber Production Department) under George Ryle. Then followed temporary promotion to District Officer to take charge of the Neath District under Fred Cownie. He much enjoyed this job until in 1944 he was transferred to land acquisition, for a short time in the south of England before being moved in that capacity to the office of Director (Wales) at Aberystwyth. He was promoted to Divisional Officer in 1949, and in 1954 moved to North Wales Conservancy as State Forest Officer under the Conservator, Frank Best. In 1963 he was promoted to Conservator and moved to the then Scottish Directorate to work under John Dickson. On the closure of that office in 1965 he moved to York as Conservator, North-East England, and remained there until 1973 when he finally moved to the then North-East Scotland retiring at the end of 1975.

He was a member of, and active in, the Royal Scottish Forestry Society, the Royal Forestry Society of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Institute of Foresters, becoming its President in 1974-1975 before it reconstituted itself into the Institute of Chartered Foresters. He was a member of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the Northumberland Wildlife Trust and the Scottish Wildlife Trust. Always interested in private forestry, he took up consultancy work on retiring, and was in addition for three years Regional Secretary in Central Scotland for the Scottish Landowners' Federation. He continued an active interest in forestry until the end of his life, and loved being out in the woods.

Like his friend Morley Penistan, he had a feeling that forestry was not only a science but an art, and that any wood or forest was far more than a collection of trees, or the subject of net discounted revenue calculations. He was fond of quoting Fraser Darling's dictum that what mattered was ecological knowledge backed by spiritual conviction. He looked forward to the day when the new plantations would grow into forests, and in his retirement was happy to see the beginning of forest restructuring.

He maintained strong links with Denmark and Iceland, and was a frequent visitor to both countries.

Postscript

Gunnar died peacefully at home in Perthshire on 5 August 1998 after a short illness, aged 83. He is succeeded by his sons Jon and Peter (Mark d. 1976); his sister Meg and her husband Christian; Jon's wife Sally and their daughters Lucinda and Alexandra; and very many cousins. His ashes lie in the memorial garden at Perth Crematorium together with those of his wife Kathleen (d. 1993). He will always be remembered with the greatest fondness and respect.

[Link to meeting in the Black Wood of Rannoch]

[End of document of 17 August 1998, updated]