Duncan Petrie (65), associate director of Lows of Dundee Ltd, has retired after a 50-year career in the textiles industry.
He has seen the business go full circle. He joined as a 15-year-old in the yarn sales department of Jute Industries when it employed 3000 people in the city.
He leaves it long after the departure of large scale textile manufacturing, with Lows of Dundee, a specialist distributor of coated fabrics, industrial textiles and horticultural products employing just over 30 people in the city, at Errol and Burnley.
“I’ve enjoyed my career and have worked with many fine people but the industry has changed dramatically,” he said. “We have gone from a big manufacturing nation to a service nation, especially in the textiles trade. Nowhere is this seen more than in Dundee.”
After Jute Industries, he joined Thomson Shepherd and became production controller. In 1973 he joined J. T. Inglis & Sons Ltd and in 1986 moved to Lows of Dundee when it was formed by former managers of Don & Low, which had been taken over by Shell.
His retiral this week has been marked by a dinner on board RRS Discovery.
In retirement Mr Petrie intends to enjoy golf and gardening. He and his wife Caroline live at Balmullo and have two daughters.