Lord Woolton Glad Aberdeen Press & Journal 23 June 1943

 

The war years at most distilleries are shrouded in mystery, we know from our Glen Mhor research project more detail than ever before. As the distillery Custom & Excise logbooks were merged during the war, the log has given us a unique insight.

It seems through reading the log, Gilbert W. Peterkin, who was the Glen Mhor officer became responsible for both sites. Perhaps a reflection of cost cutting and limited manpower, there's also the realisation that mothballed sites don't need as much monitoring as they did previously. And with both distilleries only separated by a road, covering both sites was much more straightforward than other distilleries.

Rather than maintaining two separate logbooks, these were merged, so in researching Glen Mhor, a large proportion of his entries relate to Glen Albyn.

We know that Glen Albyn was utilised by the NAFFI during the war years, the army were also only site, but these activities were mostly kept out of the news, including our prior discovery of a fire. This newspaper article is an exception, as it records a high ranking government minister visiting Glen Albyn. As the larger of the two sites and with a sizeable malting floor capacity, it was the perfect site for storing grain. This visit was only a few months after the distillery was mothballed in February.

Showing this find to Alan Winchester for his thoughts, he kindly observed:

That is interesting, I was interested rogued by the typical politician’s condescending view on butter.

With good rail and canal and sea, that was important.  I believe Aberlour Distillery also did this, as I think the corn mill may have been adjacent.  Also, with lack of male labour, women were employed as well to do these tasks.