Madam, – Please allow me to say a word for my late friend Evening Presssubeditor John J Dunne, described in a lively recent (October 16th) review of Aodhan Madden's book Fear and Loathing in Dublin "as a man so insecure that he had to have two of everything", cars, homes and shirts being cited.
I found him gruff, kind and thoughtful. When I knew him he certainly had two cars, one a veteran Morris Minor as a hobby, and a more modern car, a Peugeot and then a Mercedes, to get around. The man I knew was secure enough to be a good and thoughtful friend to those he cared about, and I still regret his relatively early death.
I grant his oddity. At the launch of his book The Pioneers in Wynne’s hotel in Dublin in 1981, John, who drank little, insisted that I be served a large whiskey. “I don’t really want it, John,” I protested. “No, you must have it,” he insisted. “It is the principle of the thing.” – Yours, etc,