Lieutenant Colonel Robert Blair Mayne, (11 January 1915 – 14 December 1955), better known as Paddy Mayne, was a British Army officer from Newtownards, capped for Ireland and the British Lions at rugby union, lawyer, amateur boxer, and a founding member of the Special Air Service (SAS). During the course of the Second World War, Mayne became one of the British Army's most highly decorated soldiers. He was controversially denied a Victoria Cross. Early life and sporting achievements Robert Blair "Paddy" Mayne was born in Newtownards, County Down, Ireland (now Northern Ireland), the sixth of seven children in a Protestant family. The Maynes were prominent landowners who owned several retail businesses in the town. He was named Robert Blair after a second cousin, who at the time of his birth was a British Army officer serving in the First World War. The family home, Mount Pleasant, is situated on the hills above Newtownards. Mayne attended Regent House Grammar School. It was there that his talent for rugby union became evident, and he played for the school 1st XV and also the local Ards RFC team from the age of 16. While at school he also played cricket and golf, and showed aptitude as a marksman in the rifle club. On leaving school he studied law at Queen's University Belfast, studying to become a solicitor. While at university Mayne was an officer cadet with the Queen's University, Belfast Contingent, Officers' Training Corps. While at university he took up boxing, becoming Irish Universities Heavyweight Champion in August 1936. He followed this by reaching the final of the British Universities Heavyweight Championship, but was beaten on points. With a handicap of 8, he won the Scrabo Golf Club President's Cup the next year. Mayne's first full Ireland rugby cap also came in 1937, in a match against Wales. After gaining five more caps for Ireland as a lock forward, Mayne was selected for the 1938 British Lions tour to South Africa. While the Lions lost the first test, a South African newspaper stated Mayne was "outstanding in a pack which gamely and untiringly stood up to the tremendous task". He played in seventeen of the twenty provincial matches and in all three tests. On returning from South Africa, he joined Malone RFC in Belfast. While on tour in South Africa with the Lions in 1938, Mayne's rambunctious nature came to the fore, smashing