The excellent appreciation of Luke Dillon-Mahon on August 25th rightly gave prominence to his great work establishing the Galway branch of the Samaritans 21 years ago. As a very old friend and admirer of Luke I would like to add something about his early life and character.
I first knew Luke at Eton in the 1930s, where he was in H.K. Marsden's house. HKM was widely known as "Bloody Bill", owing to the strict disciplinary regime in his house. I asked Luke what it was like to have such a martinet as a housemaster and in his inimitable low key way he replied: "Oh, it's all right when you get to know him."
I came to know Luke much better at Cambridge, although he was at Trinity and I at Kings. I have many happy memories of parties in his rooms or those of friends. He was a marvellous host, always welcoming us with the lovely smile and often some rather unusual off-beat comment.
One of my happiest memories of him is the days we went shooting together. Luke loved the countryside and its pursuits. He entered into the spirit of those days in his quietly enthusiastic way and we had quite a job keeping up with his long legs walking across the boggy land. Perhaps it felt a bit like his native Ireland to him.
In 1939 Luke came to stay with us in Galloway. He was a delightful guest, obviously enjoying to the full the many country activities, including rough shooting and supplying the house with firewood from fallen trees. This involved pulling the trunks up the side of a glen and taking them down the hill on the chassis of an ancient Morris Cowley. I have a splendid picture of Luke struggling with the heavy logs.
The war came only two months after we had taken our degrees in the summer of 1939. Luke was a man of peace and he could easily have found a valid reason for keeping out of a war in which his own country was not directly involved. He was very proud of being Irish but he had many friends across the Irish Sea, and a strong sense of duty to support a worthy cause made him enlist in the Royal Artillery.
After the war in 1947 Luke joined Mather and Crowther, a big advertising agency in London. There he met his dear wife Audrey, who shared his ignorance of what an advertising agency did. But I guess his administrative ability and artistic sense was a great help and he prospered there. In 1954 he joined Arks in Dublin, another big agency, of which he subsequently became managing director and chairman. He was granted an honorary life fellowship of the Institute of Advertising Practitioners of Ireland, the only person to be so honoured.
He retired early in 1970 to go and look after his family home in Ahascragh. In 1977 Audrey and Luke built their house Cooleen, at Moycullen in Galway, where they created a most beautiful garden and decorated the house with Luke's lovely landscape pictures. There I visited them twice, in the 1980s and again in 1996. As always there was a warm welcome and in spite of his stroke the old smile was still there in 1996 and we gossiped about old times as we sat in the garden among the shrubs and flowers, every one of whose names he knew.
Luke was really special: although a very outgoing person with deep concern for others, as witness his work for the Samaritans, he went about his business in a quiet, undemonstrative way, and would always play down any suggestion that he had done anything significantly valuable. But when he felt strongly about something he would not hold back from expressing himself forcefully.
He was also a sincere and dedicated Christian and a lay reader; although he did not wear his religion on his sleeve, the high principles by which he lived were clear for all to see.
As a friend, he was kind, thoughtful and generous in thought and deed. My clearest memory of Luke is his rather wry sense of humour which was always bubbling below the surface, ready to emerge at the drop of a hat. Because of that sense of humour, sometimes aimed at himself, and never against anyone, life always seemed to be more worthwhile and happy when Luke was there. So we his friends feel a great loss in the passing of this quietly sparkling man.