Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
After 67 years of service, working for four generations of the same family, Barry Loughran has retired from A. Perry Ltd at the age of 82, having joined as a factory apprentice in 1959.
Loughran rose to become a factory supervisor, a role he held for many years. At 65 he announced his retirement, but it never quite stuck, and he came back four days a week as an extra pair of hands wherever the business needed him.
In the seventeen years since, he has worked in the factory, driven delivery vehicles, built exhibition stands at trade shows up and down the country, and turned his hand to maintenance work across the site.
A Perry awards a gold watch to every employee who reaches 25 years of service, Loughran is one of the only employees in the company’s 100-year history to have received two.
When the directors asked what he would like as a retirement gift, Loughran asked for a Perry wheelbarrow. The company duly obliged, and paired it with a three-night VIP stay at Studley Castle to send him off in style.
Guy Perry, managing director of A. Perry Ltd, said: “Sixty-seven years of loyalty, hard work, and quietly getting on with the job, in the way only Barry can. The place simply won’t be the same without him, and we are going to miss him more than he knows. On behalf of everyone at A. Perry, thank you Barry for everything, and please don’t be a stranger.”
