Bobbie Mitchell was a big man, a man greatly loved by his family and his friends. He was born in 1917, and was educated at Aravon, and then Cheltenham College. He was very proud of being an old boy of Cheltenham, and always wore the tie.
As he grew up he was very involved in life around Greystones, Co. Wicklow. He was the "big drummer" in the famous Greystones Pipe Band, run by the scouts. His brother, Denis, played the bagpipes in the same band. Those days in the band were part of a great love of military music. Indeed, he spent four years in the army, which he loved, and would probably have made it his career except for his loyalty to the family business. He always kept up his contact with the army.
Bobbie and sport were inseparable. One of the sports he enjoyed was swimming, and it was in Pembroke Swimming Club that he met Sheila, herself an international swimmer, and a record holder in the 220 and 440. He himself had competed in the Liffey swim, and the Dublin Bay swim. However, it seems that he was attracted by more than her swimming, and they were married on the July 5th, 1941, and what a happy marriage it proved to be. She was the "light of his life" to the very end.
He sailed at the Royal Irish Yacht Club, he played water polo, he loved riding, and was secretary to the Bray Hunt, and was involved in the organising of point to point events. It was said that, only in latter years when he could no longer run, did he take up golf.
But the greatest love of his sporting life was his rugby. He joined Lansdowne straight from school, and played twelve consecutive seasons without injury or without being dropped. The family, indeed, had had a long connection with the club through his father and his uncles. In these early days he was coached by many of the great international players, and played for the Leinster Provincial XV.
But just as much as he enjoyed playing, he also enjoyed his career as a referee. Part of that time included three internationals, including a Calcutta Cup match between England and Scotland. He particularly enjoyed refereeing schoolboy matches, and was very popular with the coaches for his great skill in dealing with them. It was part of his love of young people, which probably came from the fact that he always remained a boy at heart. He achieved the honour of becoming President of the Leinster Branch of the Referees' Association. But throughout his rugby career he was firm in his attachment to Lansdowne, where he served as President.
He was Governor of the Church of Ireland College of Education in Kildare Street, and was the person mainly responsible for obtaining Rathmines Castle as its new home when it moved from Kildare Street, and played a major part in its move.
With all these other activities it would be easy to ask how he ever got time to do any work. The amazing thing is that he did and, like everything else, he did it extremely well. He joined his uncle in the family business, Mitchell's of Kildare Street, after leaving school, and was left with the running of it after only four years with his uncle's early death. It was in the days when Ireland was not really into wine in any major way, but by hard work, and his contacts in the other areas of his life, he built up a great business, with friends and contacts in every part of the wine producing world. Many of these friends he kept contact with up to the end. In the last few years he took semiretirement from the business, but as his son Johnnie remarked recently: "full retirement was never on the cards".
He was sometimes referred to as "Mr Wine". He was an expert in his field. As another member of the wine business put it: "He was a true wine man, when all the rest of us were only converted sherry and whiskey drinkers". There was nothing he loved more than sharing a night with friends over his favourite wines.
As I said, Bobbie was a big man, with a big heart, a heart that was big enough not just for his family and friends, but for children, for people in need or in trouble and for people of all classes and creeds - he made no distinctions on grounds of rank or age or religious affiliation. He had friends everywhere. He loved his church, and was a loyal member. He lived out what he believed in his attitudes to others. Above all, he had a wonderful sense of humour, and an impish schoolboy sense of fund, even in the last few months when his health was failing.