05/26/2025
Below is a photograph taken around 1890, it is title the "Saw Doctor."
His name is Andrew Auld, Andrew is dressed in a claw-hammer coat and a bowler hat, he was a regular visitor to Callander. A saw doctor is a person who maintains and repairs saws, employed by saw mills and timber mills to repair very large and expensive saws, it requires a high degree of skill, it takes many years of full-time saw filier to become proficient in the trade. Andrew after visiting the local saw mills used to set up shop at the corner of South Church Street, he had a good reputation and often did quite well. However after a job finished, he too often adjourned to the Star Hotel (Ancaster Hotel) and by afternoon was stretched out by his vice sound asleep. The sole police man of those days was Sergeant Petrie, he would es**rt Andrew to a temporary lodging, where the next morning, he was duly fined 5/- for being drunk and incapable. There was a story that Andrew when half drunk had been passing through, when he eyed a splendid carriage and a pair of horses standing in front of the grocers shop. Andrew stepped into the carriage and shouted
"home driver" and the carriage set off. The carriage belonged to a local Magistrate and as it sped rapidly up the drive to the Mansion house, the coachman heard the notes of a Penny whistle proceeding from the carriage where Andrew was reclining in state and regaling himself with "The Campbell's are coming." That escapade landed him in jail for six weeks.
