David Murray Obituary

DAVID MURRAY, formerly Export Director of Paterson and more recently Lowepro, passed away on Sunday 16th October aged 77, having been diagnosed with stomach cancer in the early part of this year.
David was born and raised on a farm outside Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland being the second of four boys who were followed some 10 years later by triplet girls, very unusual in 1948 before the days of fertility treatment. On leaving school at 14, David joined the local branch of Boots the Chemist as a messenger boy, and progressed to joining and then managing the photographic department. David worked hard and started opening his department early in the morning to supply cameras and film to visitors about to leave Inverness on coach tours. Boots thought well of him and put him through Marischal College, Aberdeen. A chance encounter with founder and fellow Scot Donald Paterson led to his move to the Paterson company at Boswell Court in London. David joined the Export Department, initially in the buying department then moving to exports, reporting
to Export Director Ian Stears, and later being promoted to the Export Director position.

David stayed with the company through its various incarnations and finally “hung up his tanks” in 2000, but was immediately lured out of retirement by the opportunity to build export sales at the newly formed company Lowepro UK. David was responsible for increasing the distribution of Lowepro from around 25 countries to nearly 100, before his “final” retirement in 2005.

A great networker, David knew every photographic distributor in every country – even those who weren’t handling his product. He became a guru in the world of exporting and was constantly being consulted by colleagues from other manufacturers about which distributor to work with in a given country. Everyone in the industry knew David, and his passing marks the end of the era of silver- based photography.

A memorial service will be held at Chalfont St Giles Parish Church, 2 Deanway, Chalfont St Giles HP8 4JH on Monday 7th November at 1.00pm. No flowers please, but donations to Marie Curie Cancer Care (www.mariecurie.org.uk) or Iain Rennie Home Hospice Care (www.irhh.org) who made such a difference in caring for David and supporting his family during his illness.