than 100 MPs also stated that: The UK Government declined to re-open the case, though the Blair Mayne Association vowed to continue their campaign to have the Victoria Cross retrospectively awarded. After the war In 1945 Mayne was recruited to the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey as deputy to expedition leader Edward W. Bingham. He visited the Falkland Islands, Deception Island and Port Lockroy. Mayne returned to Newtownards to work first as a solicitor and then as Secretary to the Law Society of Northern Ireland. He suffered severe back pain which prevented him from even watching rugby as a spectator. He rarely talked about his wartime service. On the night of Tuesday 13 December 1955, after attending a regular meeting of the Friendship Lodge, Mayne continued drinking with a masonic friend in the nearby town of Bangor, before making his way home in the early hours. At about 04:00 he was found dead in his Riley roadster in Mill Street, Newtownards, having reportedly collided with a farmer's vehicle. At his funeral hundreds of mourners turned out to pay their respects and to see him interred in a family plot in the town's old Movilla Abbey graveyard. After his death his masonic jewel was preserved for many years by an old schoolfriend before it was presented to Newtownards Borough Council where it was displayed in the Mayoral Chamber of the Council Offices. A road in the town was later named in his honour and in 1997 a statue was dedicated to him outside the town hall. Reputation During the 1938 Lions tour it is said that Mayne relaxed by "wrecking hotels and fighting dockers". Mayne is also described as growing increasingly withdrawn as the war progressed, preferring books to the company of friends. This tendency was said to have become more marked after the death of his father during the Second World War. Mayne was refused leave to attend the funeral and a story has him embarking on a drinking binge and rampage in central Cairo in an effort to find and beat up Richard Dimbleby. Mayne was inclined to remonstrate with colleagues in the armed services who showed little or no understanding of the complex politics of Northern Ireland. Legacy A less-than-lifesize bronze statue of Blair Mayne stands in Conway Square, Newtownards. In 2003 a temporary British Army base in Kuwait, occupied by the first battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment,