Mark Stilwell was a stoic family man. A gentleman, passionate about golf, history, gastronomy, and so much more.
Where does one start when paying tribute to their father? I’m not entirely sure, but I will try to tell you about what drove mine and some of the many things I am grateful to him for. I’ll start with an easy one: I’m grateful to him for introducing me to Bruce, which led me to work for Open Media and do something I love. He was good at that, connecting people.
My father left us just over two weeks ago. He was just 74. I say just because before his devastating diagnosis, he was a man full of life, who looked and always told us he felt much younger than he was. But, a little over two years ago, he had to come to terms with a new reality: he would have to put up a fight against Motor Neuron Disease. Although it is a terminal illness, he refused to let it define him and confronted it with stoicism and discretion.
Mark Andrew Stilwell was born in Lisbon in the summer of 1949 and was educated in England at the Oratory School in Oxfordshire. He spoke perfect Portuguese (and later French, thanks to my mother) and was incredibly proud of his Anglo-Portuguese heritage (which he loved to share with everyone he met!). As the eldest of five children and one of the eldest of 39 first cousins, he was always “one of the responsible ones” and happiest when surrounded by his large family. That’s what mattered the most to him. That … and golf!
He discovered his love of the sport when my grandfather, John Stilwell, founded the Penina Hotel and built the region’s first 18-hole golf course with the help of his good friend, Sir Henry Cotton. It was with Henry that my father learnt to play golf and became an accomplished player. And I’m not just saying that because I’m his daughter. I have all his trophies to prove it (he would love this bit!).
Penina is also where he met my mother, Viviane, a pretty Belgian girl he charmed by the hotel pool. Their story began during an eventful time in Portuguese history. Shortly after the Carnation Revolution, they were married in Belgium, where they lived for the next 13 years and had two children: first, my brother John Philip, in Flanders, and then me, in Wallonia (regional differences we have managed to overlook in order to get on).
When my parents returned to the Algarve in 1988, my father started working with his father at Alto Club before creating his golf consultancy business. This was when golf took on another dimension for him. Not only would he start running Vale de Milho Golf, which he eventually bought with his business partner and brother-in-law João Zilhão, but he would also get the opportunity to work on what he considered to be his greatest achievement: Montebelo Golf. He designed and built this stunning 27-hole mountain course in Viseu, with extraordinary views of the Serra da Estrela and Serra do Caramulo, with his other business partner and good friend Malcolm Kenyon.
To my father’s greatest dismay, I, the black sheep of the family, never took up golf. I left that to my brother, with whom he enjoyed playing many rounds at Penina.
If it hadn’t been for golf, I’d like to think my father would have been an excellent History teacher. He was so passionate about it and had a talent for sharing his considerable knowledge with ease and clarity. British and Portuguese history and genealogy were his favourite topics, which he probably developed when we lived on the Waterloo battlefield and he was a member of the Waterloo Committee.
My father would probably disapprove of the colloquial tone I’m using to tell his story. He was always very formal and known to follow the rules. But deep down, I know he just wanted to have fun. Some of my fondest memories of him are in the kitchen, where he taught me how to cook and enjoy good wine, in our beautiful garden he planted so lovingly, and on the dancefloor, where he could stay for hours. He just adored music and dancing, which kept him going till the very end. This is who Mark Stilwell was: a stoic family man, a gentleman, and so much more.
By ALEXANDRA STILWELL
