As the Second World war entered its second year, there was a timber shortage in Britain. Before hostilities, Britain had imported 95 per cent of its timber, but as the war progressed and the enemies invaded traditional suppliers or jeopardised the transportation of wood via the U-boat threat, home-grown timber cutting had to be expanded. This article concerns the employment of men of the British Honduran Forestry Unit (hereafter BHFU), who were brought to Scotland to cut timber, and their reception by local people and the authorities in Berwickshire.
During the war, thousands of people moved to the rural counties of Berwickshire, Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire. These included prisoners of war, evacuees, munition workers, militar y personnel at an RAF base, Polish troops and timber workers from Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Newfoundland and British Honduras. All were regarded as ‘foreigners’ by the local population. This influx of predominantly male outsiders had considerable implications for the police. The usual combination of young men and alcohol kept the force busy maintaining order, yet the Hondurans proved to be a particular challenge that warranted special attention because the men were Black. Their treatment by the Scottish authorities is imbued with themes repeated throughout Britain during the war; a fear which grew into a moral panic surrounding white British women and girls associating with men of a different race. The authorities were sensitive to the charge of racism, and this is reflected in the fact that certain files on the BHFU are still marked as ‘closed’ in national and local archives. Police Scotland permitted the author access to police records from the Scottish Borders Archive, on the condition that the officers and staff were anonymised.
The BHFU in Berwickshire
In May 1941, the colonial office contacted the governor of British Honduras to ask if men could be recruited to work in Scotland. The governor was relieved to receive this request because high unemployment in the colony was causing discontent with British rule. The first contingent of 539 men arrived in Scotland in October 1941, having been torpedoed en route; they all survived the experience but landed at the start of a Scottish winter without their luggage. The second group of 331 men arrived a month later. The Hondurans were sent to six camps around Scotland, including Duns, where 160-200 men were accommodated with a British manager in charge.
The conditions the men found at Duns were rudimentary, yet an
