island. Today a motorway runs from Changi Airport to the city centre. Then there was only a narrow country road and the journey seemed endless. But eventually I arrived at the Guard Room, handed in the pistol, got a signature for it and sped back to Singapore just in time to catch the ship.
Three weeks later we arrived in Liverpool. In the eighties I went as a minister to see a youth project at the mouth of the Mersey and there was not a ship to be seen, but in 1952 we were in a mass of shipping as we waited for the tide to turn. Eventually we entered the river and then began to come alongside, and on the quay I could see my parents and my sister Zoe. The next morning I disembarked and, after a quick word with the family, boarded a train bound for the Royal Armoured Corps headquarters, Bovington. I had 180 men under my charge, all due to leave the army, most with homes in the north of England and all fed up at not being allowed to go home at once. I sensed the danger and resolved to keep a very careful check on numbers. On leaving Crewe my 180 had shrunk to ninety-eight, Stafford left me with seventy. Before we arrived at Euston I gave my depleted band a strong lecture on the dire consequences which would follow if they did not board the train at Waterloo in three hours time, but at Waterloo my band of followers had dwindled to forty-three and when we got to Wool, the station for Bovington, there were only seventeen left.
CHAPTER FIVE
Starting at the Bar
M y national service now at an end, it was time to join the barristers’ chambers in Manchester where I was to be a pupil of James Warden Stansfield. Stansfield was the shyest man I have ever met. A table and chair were provided for me in his room and he threw a few sets of papers at me and asked me to read them. No further words were spoken till 1 p.m. when he asked me to accompany him to his club for lunch. He never said a word when we were walking there or during the course of lunch. After lunch we watched some people playing snooker as we drank coffee, again in silence. The afternoon was also spent in silence: and the following day I was told by the chambers’ clerk, Randall, that Mr Stansfield had decided that I might be happier in a room with another pupil. From that time onwards I saw little of Stansfield and I cannot remember doing any work for him or receiving any advice from him. Luckily, however, the head of chambers was a very different type of man. John Addleshaw was enormously popular, not surprisingly as he was prepared to go to endless trouble to help the young people in chambers, advising them on their court cases, helping them to draft pleadings and write opinions. I suppose he could not have been very busy himself or he would not have had the time to help as he did. Work was not plentiful at the Bar in Manchester at the beginning of the fifties before legal aid became a growth industry; and the 300 guineas Iearned in my first year, although not a record, was thought pretty good going.
The reason for my doing quite well was that I was the only barrister who lived in north-east Lancashire. Most Northern Circuiteers with chambers in Manchester lived in Cheshire. A few were scattered around Preston and Blackpool but there was no one near Burnley or Blackburn. My father’s old firm lived up to its reputation for caution. One day the senior partner rang and said he had an important brief for chambers. My spirits soared but only for a moment; because he quickly added that it was a weighty matter which he was proposing to give to Stansfield. But plenty of other local solicitors gave me massive support and I scooped the pool at Burnley and Blackburn Quarter Sessions.
The Prosecuting Solicitor at Blackburn Quarter Sessions was a relative by marriage with a daughter called Ann. One day he rang up and said that I could have an extra brief provided I took his daughter to the Hunt Ball. I duly did so.
John Addleshaw had recently acquired a new pupil called Colin
Three weeks later we arrived in Liverpool. In the eighties I went as a minister to see a youth project at the mouth of the Mersey and there was not a ship to be seen, but in 1952 we were in a mass of shipping as we waited for the tide to turn. Eventually we entered the river and then began to come alongside, and on the quay I could see my parents and my sister Zoe. The next morning I disembarked and, after a quick word with the family, boarded a train bound for the Royal Armoured Corps headquarters, Bovington. I had 180 men under my charge, all due to leave the army, most with homes in the north of England and all fed up at not being allowed to go home at once. I sensed the danger and resolved to keep a very careful check on numbers. On leaving Crewe my 180 had shrunk to ninety-eight, Stafford left me with seventy. Before we arrived at Euston I gave my depleted band a strong lecture on the dire consequences which would follow if they did not board the train at Waterloo in three hours time, but at Waterloo my band of followers had dwindled to forty-three and when we got to Wool, the station for Bovington, there were only seventeen left.
CHAPTER FIVE
Starting at the Bar
M y national service now at an end, it was time to join the barristers’ chambers in Manchester where I was to be a pupil of James Warden Stansfield. Stansfield was the shyest man I have ever met. A table and chair were provided for me in his room and he threw a few sets of papers at me and asked me to read them. No further words were spoken till 1 p.m. when he asked me to accompany him to his club for lunch. He never said a word when we were walking there or during the course of lunch. After lunch we watched some people playing snooker as we drank coffee, again in silence. The afternoon was also spent in silence: and the following day I was told by the chambers’ clerk, Randall, that Mr Stansfield had decided that I might be happier in a room with another pupil. From that time onwards I saw little of Stansfield and I cannot remember doing any work for him or receiving any advice from him. Luckily, however, the head of chambers was a very different type of man. John Addleshaw was enormously popular, not surprisingly as he was prepared to go to endless trouble to help the young people in chambers, advising them on their court cases, helping them to draft pleadings and write opinions. I suppose he could not have been very busy himself or he would not have had the time to help as he did. Work was not plentiful at the Bar in Manchester at the beginning of the fifties before legal aid became a growth industry; and the 300 guineas Iearned in my first year, although not a record, was thought pretty good going.
The reason for my doing quite well was that I was the only barrister who lived in north-east Lancashire. Most Northern Circuiteers with chambers in Manchester lived in Cheshire. A few were scattered around Preston and Blackpool but there was no one near Burnley or Blackburn. My father’s old firm lived up to its reputation for caution. One day the senior partner rang and said he had an important brief for chambers. My spirits soared but only for a moment; because he quickly added that it was a weighty matter which he was proposing to give to Stansfield. But plenty of other local solicitors gave me massive support and I scooped the pool at Burnley and Blackburn Quarter Sessions.
The Prosecuting Solicitor at Blackburn Quarter Sessions was a relative by marriage with a daughter called Ann. One day he rang up and said that I could have an extra brief provided I took his daughter to the Hunt Ball. I duly did so.
John Addleshaw had recently acquired a new pupil called Colin
Similar Books
