She still calls him Mr Gageby. He changed her life and her eyes sparkle with love and admiration for her former editor. Maeve Binchy and Douglas Gageby meet once a year for lunch.
Maeve reminices about working in The Irish Times when Mr Gageby was its editor. Her life changed in 1968 when he offered her a job. "I hadn't a day's experience in a newspaper and they took me on," she says.
The former editor is surrounded by friends, relatives, former colleagues and admirers who want to say hello and buy a copy of his book about his father-in-law entitled The Last Secretary General - Sean Lester and the League of Nations.
"He was the greatest man I ever worked for," says Gerry Mulvey, former deputy editor of the newspaper. Are those tears in his eyes? Helen Gygax, another former colleague, enjoys the event too. The book is introduced by Dr T. K. Whitaker. Afterwards he chats with Col Ned Doyle. Garret FitzGerald is there too.
The tall, blonde artist, Elizabeth Cope, is worried that her pink and black top is a bit Sue-Ellenish. She may never wear it again, but her "hard-working farmer" husband Geoffrey Cope, just grins.
Twins Catriona and Vanessa Berman are there to celebrate the launch of their grandfather's book about their great-grandfather. Colm Denham (15), another grandson, who did a history project on Sean Lester, and his older sister, Niamh, are there too, along with their mother Justice Susan Denham. Patricia Kilroy, Sean Lester's youngest daughter, there with her sisters Ann Gorski and Dorothy, Mr Gageby's wife, says the book "keeps me awake at night".