| Mr Robertson, who has been honoured for his many years of voluntary and charitable work, was presented with his award at City Chambers by Lord Provost John Letford.
He said the award had come “like a bolt from the blue” when he received a phone call from the council informing him of the honour.
Mr Robertson has spent his working life as a solicitor with the firm now known as Blackadders and which his father helped to found. He is also an honorary sheriff.
But it was for his work in the community that he has been named as Dundee’s Citizen of the Year for 2003.
Among the long list of organisations with which he has been involved are the Whitehall Theatre Trust; the Downfield Musical Society, of which he is honorary president; Dundee Age Concern; and the medical fund-raising charity Tenovus.
He is also chairman of the Dundee/Alexandria twinning association, a member of the Dundee Highland Society and of the reformed Morgan Academy Former Pupils’ Association and an elder of Stobswell Church.
Mr Robertson was chosen by a panel chaired by the Lord Provost and including councillors, chief executive Alex Stephen, representatives of the clergy, the chamber of commerce, the universities and the Trades Council.
Mr Letford said one of the main things which had influenced the panel’s decision was Mr Robertson’s work for the Whitehall Theatre.
“Over the years, the theatre has struggled and there were times when it could have gone under,” he said. “Norrie Robertson has been instrumental in ensuring that didn’t happen.”
Mr Robertson said became involved with the Whitehall Theatre when the local amateur societies bought it from the council in 1983.
“Since then it has been run on a voluntary basis through the hard work of a huge number of volunteers,” he said.
The Lord Provost said there had been a record number of nominations for Citizen of Year and an exceptionally high calibre of candidates, but Mr Robertson had stood out —and the panel’s decision had been unanimous. |
