Removals through the Ages

'Removals through The Ages' might sound like a post lunch talk guaranteed to put anyone to sleep; but after the weekly lunch, Club President Brian Munro's fellow Rotarians did not fall asleep. Brian Munro gave a short and attention holding account of 'Removals through The Ages' that encompassed household, commercial, military and industrial removals from earliest times. Moving goods and chattels on foot, on beasts of burden, along tracks, roads, canals, and across continents by all manner of transport means is an unending human endeavour. Removal company names familiar to many like The Aberdeen Shore Porters Society begun in 1498, Pickfords, Hays Wharf, Flemings of Rosyth, and Fife Group, typify the range of tasks and operations still undertaken across The United Kingdom, and beyond, by members of The British Association of Removers (BAR). The removals industry is often seen as a barometer, a pointer, vis a vis the state of the economy at any given time. Recent years of housing market downturn had resulted in tough trading condition for removers able to stay in business. Removals nowadays in modern transport vehicles certainly move along a tad more than say compared to removals in canal barges in 1803 when horse drawn canal vessel removals averaged at best, three and half miles per hour!