Retiring after more than 35 years in egg industry

An association stretching back more than 35 years with ISA egg layers ended this month with the retirement of John Durkee, regional technical sales manager for Tom Barron ISA in Wales and the Midland counties.

When he began his career in the poultry industry with South Western Chicks in 1970, the brown egg layer Warren Studler Sex-Sal-Link was starting to gain a foothold to challenge the supremacy of the white egg breeds that predominated at that time. Then as brown eggs took over and after the breed was relaunched as the ISABROWN it became the market leader through the 1980s.

The egg crisis brought on by Edwina Currie's comments about salmonella led to him leaving South Western Chicks for several years and he worked for a time with poultry meat producer Sun Valley. He returned to South Western Chicks in 1995 and joined ISA when the company was taken over in 1998.

The poultry industry was not Mr Durkee's first choice career — he began, as all school leavers did in the locality, going down the coal mines in the Rhymney Valley — but he became a highly respected figure among egg producers.

"John took a very enthusiastic, cheerful approach which won him many friends as well as customers in the egg industry," says Doug Kirkby, national sales director of Tom Barron ISA. "His strong technical knowledge has been a great asset to the breed."

Mr Durkee, who lives at Upper Cwmbran in south Wales with his wife Ann, has chosen to spend a weekend at the World Snooker Finals at Sheffield later this month as his retirement gift from the company. Snooker is a lifelong interest and he has played matches against some of the sport's leading figures.