Bob Taylor of TPL Labels is celebrating 40 years in the manufacturing business his father created in East Kilbride, and has no yen to retire – he tried it once, but after eight years in the south of France he came back.

"I was 49 and it was a big mistake," he says. "The business wasn't going in the right direction, granddaughters started arriving, and you can get equally fed up with sunshine as with rain.

"I decided to come back and be hands-on again. I don't miss France at all."

Mr Taylor is the manufacturer who recently demanded a retraction of a potentially damaging alert, sent to some of TPL's 500 industrial customers by credit reference agency Dun & Bradstreet, because it was unfounded.

The alert, automatically-generated in the US, warned customers the company in "Glasgow, England" was now higher-risk because of its "number of employees" and being in a "higher risk country based on failure rates". (Scotland's failure rate in March 2013 was well below that of the rest of the UK, according to rival agency Experian).

According to a D & B outlet in London contacted by Mr Taylor, TPL had actually received "no unfavourable data" and had a very strong failure score.

He now says: "I wanted to pursue it further, but my lawyer said this is Dun & Bradstreet in New York, we can't take them on."

The chairman returned to the helm in 2008 on the eve of the crash, when profits at TPL Labels were five times their current level, before orders "fell off a cliff".

He admits: "When I was in France it was more a lifestyle business, I was making plenty of money, but it doesn't make you very keen."

But that has changed. TPL has invested heavily and is driving into new markets, and Mr Taylor says the banks (he has always been with the Clydesdale) are not starving good businesses.

"I have got banks coming onto me all the time – if I wanted money there is no shortage."

Mr Taylor also believes indigenous manufacturing is the lifeblood of the Scottish economy, but gets the least help.

"I have approached Scottish Enterprise many times – the problem was we were cash-rich and they basically said come back when you are in financial difficulties.

"A lot of the electronics companies we used to deal with were only there for the five years they had to stay to get all the grants and support, then they disappeared to Singapore or wherever."

Bob Taylor was 21 and "living in a commune outside Invergordon" in 1973 when his career began. "My dad came up and dragged me away and said come and work for me. My first job was painting the warehouse – it didn't need painting, he just wanted to give me a job".

But he was to learn some big business lessons.

TPL had begun life in 1969 as a packaging supplier and by the 1980s three supermarkets were taking 80% of its output.

"We were busy fools," he says. "Supermarkets just screw you into the ground."

At a meeting at the old Argyll headquarters in Middlesex, his father was told "we have started a retrospective rebate system, and as of three months ago you owe us 7.5% off the top of sale value".

TPL immediately began a move into labels, Mr Taylor says, which accelerated after his father's death in 1988. He brought in new experience, and borrowed to invest – which left £1 million of debt.

"Our houses were up as well. There was not a lot of sleep. We went away from the food trade and launched into industrial sectors, anything non-food."

Durable filmic labels for cars, vans, boilers and other appliances replaced low-margin work for the retailers.

Now a further reinvention has seen a rebranded TPL invest £500,000 in new eight-colour presses enabling it to diversify into bespoke printed packaging (including sachets for the health and beauty sector) and a £40,000 IT system, while Mr Taylor and his wife Ann now own 100% of the business having bought out his brother.

Growth has been tough, with turnover still stuck below £3m, leaving TPL well behind Scotland's bigger players in the sector such as Macfarlane, Labelgraphics and Watson – but it is an attractive prize.

"I have been approached a number of times to sell out," the boss says.

"But I served my apprenticeship as an engineer and have retained a bit of my socialism from those days. The reason I have knocked back offers is they would shut the place down. All they were after was the order book. I have got people who have been here 25 years and I just couldn't do that to them. My ideal scenario is a management buy-out."

He adds: "I have always tried to make it a fun place to work, I need humour and I come across a lot of people in business with a humour by-pass."

Mr Taylor says TPL could definitely have grown faster with grants rather than loans, and admits he would like to be able to add digital printing to his current flexographic process. "I should be investing in that – but I can't right now."

He says of Government policy: "When the Coalition came in they said we need to get manufacturing back again, but I am not aware of anything happening."

Of the independence referendum he says: "I don't think anybody could vote yes given the lack of information on what is going to happen."

With a strong management team now in place, Mr Taylor can relax just a little.

He has bought the VW Campervan he could never afford when at the commune and says he is more than happy to swap Cannes for Ardnamurchan, adding slyly: "Next time I may not come back."