He was the last of his ilk. A lawyer very much of the old school. Rumpole of the Bailey.

Mervyn “Sticky” Glue passed away at a Dunedin rest home last week.

Buried in his old wig and gown, he was bade farewell in an intimate funeral on Wednesday. He was 88.

His wife Jenepher read the Dylan Thomas poem ‘Do not go gentle into that good night.’

Also a thespian, Sticky Glue once played the notorious drinker Thomas on the stage.

“He always said it was his favourite role, so one day I asked him why,” said Jenepher Glue.

“I understood him,” he answered.

Jenepher was his fifth wife. “I made sure I was his last,” she said.

Mervyn Glue was a teacher, actor, and lawyer. He was also a raconteur, rogue, and mentor.

He begrudgingly retired in 2006 aged 80.

He began his career a primary school teacher. He taught at Phillipstown and Elmwood schools before entering law in 1961.

In his formative years, when legal aid was meagre, Sticky acted pro bono for those who could not afford lawyers’ fees.

He worked alongside Stephen Erber, now a retired judge. The two shared a love of acting.

“I was admitted to the bar in 1964 and saw him at least once a week in some guise or another,” said Mr Erber.

“I loved acting with him but he could be bloody unreliable. You would offer him a line and he would recite one back from a completely different play.”

Sticky would learn his lines for an upcoming production while court was in session.

“The judge is not stupid, he knows what you’re doing,” Jenepher once told him.

“Don’t be silly, my dear. I cover the script with my hand,” he replied.

Defence lawyer Phil Shamy recalls his first day in court around 30 years ago.

“I was very nervous and almost shaking,” he said.

“Well, Merv recognised my name because he used to drink with my grandfather. He came up to me and said: ‘Don’t worry lad, nine out of 10 of (defendants) have done it, and the other one out of 10 have probably done something else’.”

Many compared Sticky to the fictional character Rumpole of the Bailey.

Rumpole was a skilled defender of the powerless. A passionate speaker and ethically upright man. A lover of cheap red wine and William Wordsworth.

“That was him, it was so apt. Because he was an actor he was so articulate and had an incredible grasp of the English language,” said Mr Shamy.

“He would caress a jury into agreeing with him.”

Former police detective Brendan Bateman “did battle” with Sticky numerous times.

“The biggest roasting I ever got in court was from Merv — the perspiration was dripping down my arm,” he said.

Sticky would recite Shakespearean passages during trials.

“The law has become quite sterilised these days, it strangles us. But Mervyn was far more free,” said fellow lawyer Clare Yardley.

She became friends with Sticky in the early 1990's when the two shared offices in Clarendon Tower on Oxford Tce.

She often served as his junior counsel.

“I remember once being so mesmerised by how he had won this seemingly impossible case and asked him how he had done it,” she said.

“You can’t lose them all, my dear,” he said.

Court barrister Michael Knowles said Sticky was “the sort of man the current legal system has tried to get rid of.”

“He was our hero. He wasn’t bound up by paperwork in court, but he delivered. He showed a scepticism for all authority figures and would mutter disparaging lines of Shakespeare which the judge failed to pick up on.”

“He gave evidence for me in one of my trials. His fee was two flagons of wine.”

Mr Knowles said most of the younger generation disregarded his courtroom theatricality.

“Mervyn would quote a line from Julius Caesar and they didn’t know what the heck he was talking about.”

To Sticky, the courtroom was as as great a stage as the boards he trod.

He knew well-known Christchurch actress Janice Gray. He was a “bloody good soul,” she said.

“I was working at the Volcano (a Lyttelton cafe). We were in trouble. We needed someone to perform. I said ‘Get Mervyn Glue.’ He charged us a case of beer.”

“He had a bit of trouble with his posture — walked in an odd manner. He was a good sort.”

The Court Theatre’s Elizabeth O’Connor once directed Sticky, but he struggled to adapt to her new-fangled methods.

“But in the end, I think I learned more from him than he ever did from me,” she said.

Sticky met Jenepher, an actress, at Avalon Studios during a script reading for a television production in 1986.

“We were all sat around this big table and this man kept staring at me. I thought it a bit odd,” said Jenepher Glue.

“Later, the producer asked me to dinner — I knew it was a setup… and there’s Mervyn sat across from me. Six months later we were married.”

Jenepher said he was “an incredibly shy man who used his wit to cover that shyness.”

“Did he like to be loved? He felt very warmly towards everyone, but I honestly can’t answer that,” she said.

“There might be a jolly lot of crims who thought he was a bastard.”

Sticky always said Jenepher was “the last Mrs Glue.”

Clare Yardley once asked him if he was trying to outdo Henry VIII in his number of wives.

“What do you mean, my dear?” he replied. “I have not had any of my wives beheaded.”

The Glues’ cottage on Oxford Tce was cosy and full of books from floor to ceiling. That humble abode was destroyed in the earthquakes.

Sticky suffered from dementia in his later years and was moved into a Dunedin rest home.

“I feel quite empty without him,” Jenepher said yesterday.

“Even though his mind had almost gone at the end, I remember visiting and him reciting three or four lines of Shakespeare beautifully.”

On the day Sticky retired, the city’s legal fraternity packed the district court to pay tribute to him.

Speaking in front of a raucous bunch, Clare Yardley recalled a play she had seen him in — naked — the aptly named ‘Foreskin’s Lament.’

“For a man with a lot to say, you had a very small part,” she jokingly told him.

Ask the older generation still practising law and they’ll swear his booming voice still echoes in the district court.

They’ll say he played the biggest part of all.