David Goodfellow, who died at home in Broughty Ferry on July 15, was a man whose passion for food and for history, sense of duty and easy, unassuming way with people helped nurture the family bakery business of Goodfellow and Steven and the many causes and charities he supported throughout his long life.
Mr Goodfellow was born in Broughty Ferry on October 17, 1930, the younger child of William Steven Goodfellow and Jean Speed. He was educated at Grove Academy, Dundee High School and Merchiston Castle.
After four years studying bakery technology in Glasgow, he did his national service from 1952-54, becoming a second lieutenant in the Heavy Artillery Regiment, then rising to the rank of captain in the Territorial Army, which he left in 1966.
He married Audrey Buttars, a teacher, in 1962 and they raised three sons, kept a good table and even crossed the Andes by bus.
With his love of classical music and of poetry, their shared love of literature and history and Audrey’s lively wit and fine cooking, an invitation to dinner with the Goodfellows was a prize indeed.
He first joined Goodfellow and Steven in 1948, becoming a director in 1959 and retiring as company chairman in 1995.
Working first with his father and uncle Alister, then latterly with his cousins Ronald and Inglis, son Martin and nephew Andrew, his career spanned a period in which the rise of the industrial bakery and the supermarket has seen the closure of many hundreds of small bakers across Scotland.
Mr Goodfellow’s belief in baking as a craft and his loyalty to and friendship with the people who worked for G&S some of them for many decades helped the company founded by his grandparents in 1897 to survive to this day as a vibrant family business.
As deacon of the bakers in 1963-4, then as deacon convener of the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee in 1988-90 and finally as Lord Dean of Guild of the City of Dundee from 1996 to 1999, he promoted charitable work and kept old ways such as the annual bridie supper alive.
In his book Bread In The Bones (1996), he celebrated Dundee, baking and the Goodfellow clan, recalling a childhood above the shop, where his mother cooked breakfast for the night shift and his father grew orchids in the warm air that rose from the bakery.
A member of Abertay Rotary Club since its foundation in 1962, Mr Goodfellow was recognised for his fund-raising efforts in the battle against polio and every spring his small greenhouse was bursting with seedlings to be sold for charity.
He loved the countryside around Dundee and was particularly fond of quoting these lines of Walter Scott: “Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!”
But it was to Broughty Ferry itself that he devoted much of his time: helping to save the old gas lights that now grace Beach Crescent, trying to save the Orchar Gallery, as a keen member of the Broughty Traders and supporter of the annual gala week and, until his death, as a trustee of Ferry House old folks’ home.
He is survived by his sister Margaret Bruce, wife Audrey, his sons Scott, Ian and Martin, and his grandchildren David, Sam, Luca and Ailsa.
A memorial service for David Goodfellow will be held at the New Kirk, Broughty Ferry, at noon on July 21. All welcome.
SG