Andrew Duff, who worked in the Meadowside caseroom of publisher DC Thomson for 48 years, has died aged 94.
He spent most of his career on nightshift and, at weekends, reported on junior football matches for the Sporting Post and Sunday Post.
Andrew (Andy) Paton Duff was born on August 21 1928 in Benvie Road in Dundee.
He was the middle child and only son of Nina and David, who both worked at Westfield Laundry off Perth Road.
One of his earliest memories was accompanying his father on his horse and cart during the school holidays, delivering and collecting laundry from establishments in the West End of Dundee.
Wartime evacuation
Andy was educated at Mitchell Street Primary and Logie Secondary Schools but had a spell at primary school in Scone when the Second World War broke out, being evacuated to a great aunt’s house.
His early teenage years were spent like many of the youths of that generation, cycling, youth hostelling, The Boys’ Brigade and the Air Training Corps, where his fascination for all things military began.
His long association with DC Thomson & Co. Ltd began in 1942, first as an office boy then as an apprentice linotype operator/compositor.
Andy was called up for National Service in 1946 and served as a corporal in the Royal Corps of Signals where his dexterity with a typewriter came in handy.
He was stationed with the British Army of the Rhine in Hanover and Celle until 1949 when he was reunited with his girlfriend, now to be fiancee, Mary Durie, with whom he had corresponded with every day while abroad.
Andy and Mary were married in March 1951 in a joint wedding ceremony at McCheyne Parish Church with Mary’s sister, Alice, and her fiance, Robert Alexander, who also worked for DC Thomson after he was demobbed from the army.
For the next eight years they raised three of their five children in a low-door tenement with two rooms in the Hilltown and were overjoyed to qualify for a soon-to-be-built house in the new housing scheme of Charleston/Camperdown.
Church commitment
Andy, who had been a deacon in St Peter’s Church, joined the new church at Camperdown whose congregation first met in Charleston School, then in 1961, the new church building was consecrated and he was ordained as an elder thus starting a long and happy association with Camperdown Parish Church which was only broken by his recent death.
He served in various posts; newsletter editor, clerk to the board, treasurer and, finally, as session clerk, receiving two long-service awards from the Church of Scotland.
Like many men in Dundee in the 1950s and 1960s he attended Dens Park one week and Tannadice the next, but his real joy was watching junior football in Tayside.
When he was not working or reporting on games, Andy could be found at Thomson Park watching Lochee United.
World travel
Andy and Mary loved to travel and had many happy holidays in Britain towing their caravan, but once they got the cruising bug, that was that. USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand were all visited as well as the Norwegian Fjords and the Mediterranean.
Despite their travels they were both doting parents, grandparents and great grandparents, attending school sports, swimming galas, cup finals, passing out parades, graduations and other events.
With five married children, 10 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren there was never a dull moment in their new home in Broughty Ferry.
Sadly, Andy was widowed in 2014 and in 2017 his second son David passed away suddenly.
He died peacefully a month short of his 95th birthday and is survived by his son, Ian, a retired pre-press manager with DC Thomson, Sheena, a retired obstetrician, Alison a retired police superintendent and Fiona, who works in finance.
You can read the family’s announcement here.