My brother, Matthew Law, who has died aged 63, was for more than 20 years a beloved tutor at the Boat Building Academy, the “wooden boat school”, in Lyme Regis, Dorset. The academy’s motto, “Launching People (and Boats)”, perfectly encapsulated Matthew’s own motivation. Thirty years sober at the time of his death, he tirelessly supported others struggling with addiction. He was an exceptional mentor: funny, original, gentle and passionate.
Born in Dorking, Surrey, Matt was the second son of Tim, a headteacher who loved sailing, and Anne, who had worked as part of the Student Movement House organisation in Kenya, Tanzania and Burma. Growing up in Bude, Cornwall, meant playing in the sea and on the downs.
Our family moved with my father’s job to Hertfordshire, and Matt attended Cavendish school in Hemel Hempstead. Work experience as a thatcher and a summer job on tugs in Southampton harbour showed his affinity for craft and boats. He got a scholarship to Gordonstoun school in Scotland for his sixth form. After a year studying humanities at Middlesex Polytechnic, he returned to the family home, by now in Wareham, Dorset, and worked for the RNLI as a labourer and in their research department in Poole.
In the early 80s Matthew joined the Tate Gallery in London as a technician, combining his love of art with his forklift driving skills. From there, he joined a year-long EU youth expedition, driving a convoy of 4x4s from London to Cape Town, engaging in projects along the way.
After jobs in London as a management consultant, then a researcher for a Confederation of British Industry film project, in 1989 Matthew joined the Irish aid agency Goal, driven by a desire to return to Africa to work in relief and development. He managed their Khartoum office for a year, and in 1990 he helped establish Action Africa in Need in Nairobi, setting up a new aid route into war-torn South Sudan. This led to him overseeing the south-east region of Kenya for Unicef, establishing refugee camps and aid routes for the thousands fleeing conflict in Somalia.
In 1995 he embarked on a master’s in development studies at Trinity College Dublin, where he got sober and a distinction. After a stint at Save the Children in London he made another change. He undertook a year of training in 1999 at the wooden boat school and was apprenticed at Latham’s boatyard in Poole, then returned to the school as a tutor, quickly assuming substantial responsibility for its operation.
One of his colleagues in Lyme Regis described the “many hours we spent in fits of giggles, trying to pull ourselves together to look more professional. I think it was all this laughter that made him such a hit with the students.” He was a wonderful teacher, hugely knowledgable, with a genuine interest in those around him; and an enthusiast for, among other things, dogs, fun, his family, calligraphy, friends, exuberant rearrangements of the English language, and chocolate eggs.
He is survived by me, and by his niece, Eliza and nephew, Seamus.
