Allan Smith, who has died aged 85, worked for J & P Coats, the multinational threadmakers from Paisley, for 38 years and ended up as the firm's chief architect, supervising the design, erection and maintenance of their buildings around the world.

In this capacity he worked not only in Europe but in Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and numerous South American countries. His last task was to assist in planning Coats' new headquarters building in St Vincent Street in Glasgow and his most bizarre job was constructing an eel farm near Hunterston power station when the company considered diversifying into the continental eel market using the waste hot water from the reactor to nurture them.

Smith was educated at Ferguslie Primary and Camphill Secondary School and was then given an architectural apprenticeship with a Paisley firm, Charles Davidson & Son.

However, after the outbreak of the Second World War he enlisted in the Royal Navy and was trained as a radio operator on the Isle of Man before joining a new destroyer, HMS Zetland, at Greenock.

The Zetland was employed on Atlantic convoy duties and in the Mediterranean, where she took part in the defence of Malta and in landings in North Africa, where she was the first ship to enter Algiers harbour.

Smith was a man of devout faith and a member of St James' Church of Scotland in Paisley then latterly the Church of the Good Shepherd in Cardonald.

He was also a pioneer of the Moral Re-Armament Movement in Scotland and in the early post-war years worked closely with other senior members of Glasgow firms such as Colvilles, Weirs, Marshalls and Thompson Newspapers to promote the concept of "teamwork in industry", in response to class-war doctrines.

In later years he was also an active supporter of schemes such as the Jubilee Debt Campaign for poor countries, Make Poverty History and campaigns against global warming.

He was a convivial individual with a lively interest in current affairs who made friends wherever he travelled.

During the war he found himself guarding a group of German prisoners of war from the Hermann Goering Parachute Regiment on board a British troopship. Seeing him reading a copy of the Paisley Daily Express, a German revealed that he had once been an apprentice at Beardmores in Paisley, and Smith promptly gave him six copies of the paper to take into captivity.

In a Bangkok hotel, Smith spotted a man with a familiar face carrying a golf club and so introduced himself. It turned out to be the Holywood star Bob Hope, who was due to entertain American troops from Vietnam, and Smith was immediately invited to watch the rehearsals.

In 1977, while awaiting a delayed plane in Bombay Airport, Smith struck up conversation with an Indian passenger and found that he was a doctor heading for a posting at Hawkhead Hospital, Paisley. Smith explained that this was five minutes from his home and offered to give the doctor a lift. Twenty seven years later he found himself under the care of the same man, by then Senior Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

At one point during the war Smith was posted as a radar officer to Orkney and while on a train he was advised by an unknown RAF travelling companion to visit the hospitable Macleod family in Kirkwall. On following the advice, Smith met the 10-year-old daughter of the family who would become his wife, 18 years later. He and Moira enjoyed 46 years together, living in the same house on Bathgo Avenue, Ralston.

Smith, who died in the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley, leaves his wife Moira, one surviving son and three grand-daughters.

By Archie Mackenzie CBE