By: Janis Birch20th Sep 2019 2:23PMHi - My Dad was Lew Read (front row, 5th from the right) and I was born there in Reefton in Oct 1963 when he was at the Ranger School. I was thrilled to discover this photograph and will print it out to show my mum Jean. Dad was in forestry all his life leaving the NZFS in mid 70's to be part of the establishment of the Northern Pulp company in Kaitaia, He managed the forestry there for many years, harvesting Aupouri forest and growing pine trees from scratch on sand dunes and leased Maori land all over the Far North. I remember mum and I 'doing the pay' by counting out and stuffing dollar notes into small brown envelopes so Dad could pay the 'boys'. I also remember well the heady smell of the pine seedlings that I was often helping to tally and load into the planting trailer. He went on to work for Juken Nissho after they bought out Northern Pulp but unfortunately lost a hard fought battle with cancer at age 60. He has been gone over 20 years now but our family is very proud of his forestry history even though we rolled our eyes at the several thousand photographs of pine trees, forestry men and equipment that he had. What was amazing was he could distinguish pictures of trees from each other and tell us exact locations and identities! Are all forestry men like this?