Mr St Clair-Newman (65), of Dunedin, who retired yesterday from Otago Furniture, said it would be hard to leave.
''Everyone out there was a boy when they started and I've watched their families grow up.''
When he was 14, he applied for a cabinetmaking apprenticeship at the Otago Chair Company in Great King St.
He started the apprenticeship in November 1964, finishing five years later.
''When I started, tradesmen wore ties. They had their aprons on, but they had a tie on and you called them Mr - it took a wee while before you could call them by their first name.''
The business was now Otago Furniture, in Teviot St.
He had trained more than 100 apprentices, but when he was the ''boy'', his duties included having enough hot glue - made from horses' hooves - available for the tradesmen.
''Otherwise, you would get your backside kicked.''
In his 50 years, his favourite jobs included fitting out the Millennium Hotel in Queenstown, the Christchurch Casino and some Interislander passenger ferries.
The furniture he was most proud of making was a ''beautiful'' chair in the company's Middlemarch dining suite, with shaped back legs, angled front legs and a rounded, upholstered backrest.
''You can put it in any room and it is elegant,'' Mr St Clair-Newman said.
He managed another arm of the business, Simplex Pram Co, which made hand-woven wicker prams, but when collapsible strollers hit the market the demand for prams waned and the business closed, he said.
He returned to Otago Furniture as a foreman and then moved into the supervisor role in the 1990s.
In his retirement, Mr St Clair-Newman would continue his work with the Kaikorai Rugby Football Club and start a role as club manager.
Otago Furniture manager Roye Haugh said Mr St Clair-Newman had the ability to make timber go beyond what other carpenters could make it do.
''He just keeps pushing the boundaries,'' Mrs Haugh said.
