his lifetime. His younger brother, Lewis, was a qualified engineer and filled the vacancy as mill director until such time as William Maddin, my father, returned from World War One.
Fourth Generation In 1919, Maddin, when aged 25, was still recovering from a war wound that had been sustained in 1915, and his university course had been disrupted by war service. The picture on the left shows him in his uniform, aged around 20. My parents, like many others of their generation, had to achieve maturity early in life, marrying in 1917 when they were only 23 years of age. My father entered the business in
1919 as its executive director, with no relevant training whatsoever. However, it soon became apparent that his wartime experience as an army officer had equipped him with the ability both to lead and to form sound judgements of people’s strengths and weaknesses. Under his management, while he learned from his mistakes as he went along, the business survived where many
others failed in the difficult years of the 1920s and 1930s. This was in large part because there was no reliance on bank finance. Profitability was hard to come by, and if there had not been cash reserves, achingly accumulated in the seventy years since 1850 to cushion the balance sheet, a lender might well have lost confidence in the company’s ability to repay loans. The flour milling part of the business had succumbed to the first
importations of Canadian wheat and the establishment of large roller mills at the ports, shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, but the oatmeal business continued to be reasonably profitable. However, its output was small, being governed by the limited availability of locally- grown oats. Maddin Scott looked to other opportunities in the 1920s and 1930s.
The company made a tentative entry into the production of compounded animal feeds, then known as “balanced rations”, using imported cereals and proteins. This change in diets for animal husbandry had to be “sold”
Above: This Leyland lorry, with its solid tyres, was the fourth in the company’s fleet. The photo was taken in Belfast in 1923, with its first load aboard en route for Omagh. In those days, the country roads tended to be only ten feet wide and were not metalled.
to the cautious farming community, largely by the government research institutions and colleges, and it met with only a slight increase in the mill’s tonnage. Even this potential was stymied by the Second World War, between 1939 and 1945, during which the importation of grains and proteins for animal feed became impossible. The emphasis once more turned back to reliance on locally-grown cereals for the production of food for the human population, for the duration of the war. My father had a frantically busy time during the war years. In addition
to management of the mill, he undertook the supervisory management of a food production factory some twenty miles distant from Omagh. Also, he served as a captain in the Home Guard, which involved him in training and sometimes in late night duties. By the end of the war, in his early fifties, he was no longer in robust health and it was time to identify a family member who would support and eventually succeed him in responsibility.
Fifth Generation My brother Bobby, who served with the Royal Navy as a fighter pilot during the war, in the pre-war years had trained for the legal profession, and so was unavailable to join the mill’s management team. My second sister, Rosemary, who had supervised the mill’s packing department for a short time during the war years, had married and emigrated with her husband to work in Nigeria. My oldest sister, Patricia, who had served in the Women’s Land
Army on a Scottish dairy farm during the war years, in 1948 married John McAusland, a Glaswegian. John, who had trained pre-war in the textile trade, seemed to Maddin to have the qualities that would fit him for a successful business career. An offer of employment and free use of a dwelling-house was made, and was accepted. After their war service, both John and Bobby were in their early
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