From East End Lawyer to East Riding Priest:

One Man’s Journey.

There is a school of thought which suggests that smell is the most potent of our senses.  This is largely because its receptor in our brain is located next to our memories.  This means that our memories can be vividly activated by an aroma which takes us back to where we first encountered it or some significant event with which it was involved.

The East End of London where I was born, and later spent five years training to qualify as a solicitor, was a place of memorable aromas.  Some were exceedingly odd to find just on the outskirts of the City of London.  For example, the smell of the smoke-house used by a local fishmonger for curing herring and haddock.  Similarly the aroma of the adjoining bakery at the back of the bread shop which was an unexpected pleasure.  These were good smells indeed, - unlike the effusions of the River Thames at Limehouse Reach which in those days were, to put it no more strongly, exceedingly pungent, indeed – challenging!

Nowadays I only have to pass either a smokehouse or bakery, both of which exist in Bridlington, to be, momentarily, back in the East End of post-war bombsites and boarded-up, unsafe houses.  Equally, aromas recall vibrant districts which were variously home to the rag trade, and therefore largely Jewish in character, or Chinatown, as it was known, with its many restaurants and colourful lanterns.

To say that the office in which I trained was a multicultural business, long before the politically correct commissars of our time got hold of the word, is an understatement. From bar mitzvahs to Muslim prayer mats and from the Orthodox weddings to liquor licenses for the Roman Catholic Church halls, diversity was at the heart of our office life and it all worked harmoniously.  Our office waiting room was a bit like a meeting of the United Nations.

The local hairdresser was Jewish and fiercely proud of his son at Oxford University. He left me in his chair half-done one afternoon because he heard on the radio that the second half of his daily double had just won at Kempton Park racecourse. He returned after about 10 minutes, finished my haircut and let me off the fee because he said I had brought him luck.

By way of contrast there was an occasion when I caused great concern on my train home one Christmas Eve.  I had placed a large plastic bag on the roof rack and it kept producing the noise of moving liquid.  It was a “thank you” gift from a Chinese client of a whole cooked chicken in its own sauce which provided Christmas dinner for the five of us at home.

The dark side of the East End came home to me some two years later and can best be exemplified by the very nervous voice of our receptionist as she told me that she had some clients in reception who wanted to see someone immediately and I was the only male in the building at the time.  The reason for her nervousness was that the clients were the Kray twins and they did not like to be kept waiting!  I survived as you can see.  I also saw them again briefly the next day to complete the task they had given me.

I cannot deny that it was a nerve-racking experience for a 20-year-old trainee.  On the other hand it was all part of what is sometimes called ‘life’s rich tapestry’.  There can be no doubt that the East End of those dim and distant days of the 1950’s & 60’s was something of a law unto itself.  On the other hand the same strange blend of criminals, celebrities, politicians and the police has emerged again in the last 15 years or so.  Just as in those days public houses like the ‘Prospect of Whitby’ & ‘The Blind Beggar’ could guarantee to have this mix alongside regulars from the immediate localities, I suspect that they or others like them would be exactly the same today.

Another recollection drawn from my early days in training relates to the day when I was taken by the Managing Clerk responsible for my teaching in Probate cases, to see the widow of a deceased client.  It was a strict Roman Catholic family of Italian origin living in a small terraced house near our office. When we arrived we were shown into a room which was very dimly lit with just a candle and with curtains drawn.  We were invited to sit at the table which had been laid with tea and biscuits.

My colleague conducted the interview with the widow of the deceased, obtained all the necessary information and documents and when the business part of meeting was over he said to her, “Ricardo looks very peaceful.”

I was somewhat surprised by this comment having noted that my colleague was looking at something behind me as he spoke.  I turned and immediately behind me saw something I had definitely not seen in the subdued light when we had come in. - namely, the deceased standing upright in his coffin with his eyes open!  It was my first encounter with a dead body and my world completed several revolutions before my equilibrium was restored.  That morning I learned that it was prudent to take nothing for granted!

My reflections on those early days begin first and foremost with the observation that my school friends, most of whom went off to university, remained young for far longer than I did.  Let me explain.  After about two months working in the office as tea maker, telephonist, post-boy, lunch-getter and runner of errands, my Principal sent for me.  He explained that I needed to do all that I had been engaged in to date, so that I might properly understand how an office functions.  He told me that he wanted me to know what sort of people were needed to make it work at its best and in order to understand that, I needed to be able to do the jobs myself.  Now the time had come when I had to expand my horizons.

In order to take the next step he asked me to put on my coat, pick up a briefcase, and walk a route he described to me which ended at Thames magistrates’ court.  I did as I was told and when I arrived at the court my Principal was waiting to meet me.  I asked him why I had been required to do what I had engaged in.

My principal told me that I had needed to be seen and recognised and so my walk had been watched all the way.  He explained that because we only acted for defendants, we were very important within the community and that this applied especially to the male members of staff.  I know that that sounds pretty sexist but remember I’m speaking of a time over 50 years ago when female solicitors were a rarity.  For instance, in my Law School class of 56 people, only four were female. Now I had been seen recognised and would be safe wherever I went in the East End.

My Principal then took me into the police station next to the court and introduced me to the Desk Sergeant.  He in turn took me downstairs into what was known as ‘The Museum’.  There he showed me the collection of knives, guns, thumbscrews, knuckle dusters, hammers, axes, whips, ropes of all kinds, bullet-proof vests, boots, swords, syringes, pliers and in fact anything that could be used by one human being to inflict pain, injury or death on another.

That afternoon not only did I see the implements themselves but also pictures of the results of their work from various pieces of evidence, including crime scene photographs gathered over many years.  Finally I was shown extracts from confiscated films of various sorts including every sort of sexual deviation imaginable!

I went on that visit aged 18 and came out aged 40.  Indeed, my wife Sue has always maintained that I did not start to be my real age until I was well past that time in my life.  I truly could not take in what I had seen that afternoon.  It is one thing to read books or newspapers but to see something of the reality is an altogether different experience.

My limited schoolboy horizon had expanded out of all recognition as the result of my East London experiences.  I was being provided with stepping-stones into the world which included the Royal Courts of Justice, Lincoln’s Inn, the Temple, Somerset House and hours spent in Brixton and other prisons where I interviewed clients.  I also spent a lot of time at various magistrates’ courts, the London Quarter Sessions, and The Old Bailey.

On the other side of the coin I also experienced my fair share of being taken for a ride to teach me, it was said, not to be tempted to get above myself.  For example. on one occasion I was given details of a claim which had been made against the owner of a merchant ship, which according to the Lloyd’s Register was moored at Wapping.  I was told to issue proceedings against the vessel in respect of the debt which was owed by its owner, and then to serve the Writ on the vessel.  I read that this was achieved by nailing a sealed copy of it to the mast which had the effect of ‘arresting the ship.’

I was left to my own devices in this matter (as a test I later discovered) and I set off armed with the office hammer and a supply of nails coupled with the necessary documents which I had very cleverly, I thought, placed in a see-through plastic bag. My pride was very short-lived when I was confronted by a very large vessel with a solid metal mast!

I had not read the amendments to the legislation which now allowed the service of the proceedings on a ship to be sellotaped instead of nailed in place.  Luckily for me the master of the vessel was still aboard who did know about this and helped me out!  The owners, it seemed, had not paid him either and so they were not his best friends!

There were two things that I learned early on in my career which have stayed with me ever since, even though the circumstances within society have changed so much since my training took place.  The first is that in those days there were only three professions, namely the ancient and long established legal profession, the church, and the new boy on the block namely medicine.  

These three professions shared two features of enormous importance I was told, since they distinguished them from all other means of earning a living.  The first was that they were based on vocation, that is to say a calling to be of service.  That vocation was exemplified by one’s duty to serve one’s client or in the case of the church, parishioners and for medicine, one’s patients.  One did this by affording total confidentiality and providing a personal service at any time of night or day if asked to do so.

It was explained to me that bills were usually to be delivered after, not as a pre condition of, providing the required response.  It was stressed to me more times than I care to remember that being professional meant never withholdings one’s services and always doing one’s best until the task was completed.

I had to put these early lessons into practice on a number of occasions, one of which was when, as a young solicitor, I had to respond to a telephone call from a hospital.  A client of mine had been taken, in a very poorly state, into Whipps Cross hospital.  She had only a few hours left to live and wanted to make a will.  The doctor who told me this and to whom my client had made the request, urged me to make haste.

Fortunately I had some suitable paper in my briefcase and when I arrived at the hospital I was able to write out a will there and then.  Since my client chose to appoint me as one of her executors, I asked the doctor and a nurse to witness my client’s signature.  She died two hours after I left the hospital at 3 o’clock that morning.

After my five years in articles I had been admitted as a solicitor in March 1962 at which time I became solicitor number 18,212 on the Roll of solicitors which in those days was unofficially limited to 20.000 at any one time.  The examination which I had sat in November the previous year comprised seven

3-hour papers lasting consecutively from Monday morning through to Thursday lunchtime.  Each paper had to be passed in one examination sitting and the total number of marks for the seven papers had to exceed an aggregate mark.  Furthermore each paper began with three compulsory questions which carried 60% of the marks.  There really was no place to hide (!) – and failure to achieve any of these requirements meant retaking the examination in its entirety.

Later in the 1960’s it became possible to resit one paper if it had been failed.  Then the papers were divided into two, with three subjects in one sitting and four in another.  Graduates were then required to serve only two years in articles instead of five which meant that many of them never fully understood office routines and practice.  It was said that the profession was modernizing and at the same time rapidly increasing its numbers to over 100,000 without any loss in quality.

Moving on from East London where I had worked as a solicitor for two years after qualifying I then spent time first in rural Essex and then in the Town Clerk’s Department of Bradford City Council.  After that I moved to a building society in Leicester and then spent four years with an international industrial conglomerate in London before returning to Bradford and becoming the secretary and legal advisor to a major building society.

It was during my second spell in Bradford that I became a Reader in the Church of England and later offered myself for consideration as an ordinand.  My vocation was tested and accepted and so I prepared to begin three years part-time training for non-stipendiary (that is to say unpaid) ministry.  I was sent to Oak Hill College in Southgate in North London at the direction of the then Bishop of St Albans.  That was because by that time we had moved to Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire so that I could work as a consultant to those working in the financial services area.  These clients included banks, insurance companies and mortgage lenders.  I made the choice to pursue that course after much prayer and in the belief that it was the right direction of travel me and for our growing family.

It was indeed a dramatic decision for someone who, had he stayed where he was, would have had a much more secure and financially advantageous future especially with four dependent children.  However, building societies were undergoing the change from mutual organizations, that is to say ones whose members’ interests were paramount, to commercial undertakings motivated by what I believe accountants are pleased to call “the bottom line”.

It was a shift of focus exemplified by the change of name of what was once the Personnel Department.  That department had been there in the past to help recruit personnel and then to look after them once recruited.  Now, as Human Resources Departments, they became a tool of management and, in the process, rapidly developed a far less caring outlook.

When I take stock and look back, I can see the recognition of this change as a distinct turning point in my life which led me away from the comfortable world of a commercial lawyer.  It came about because I had promised, with agreement from my management colleagues, that those members of my staff who obtained the right qualifications would have the opportunity to train to become solicitors.  In due course the day came when the first person achieved the necessary qualifications to go ahead and asked to do so.

However, when I met with the head of this new Human Resources Department, I was told that the society had changed its collective mind on such matters without any consultation with those actually involved.  I had given my word and several members of staff had worked very hard at evening classes to achieve the necessary qualifications.  They were now, due to a change of policy of which they were not made aware, cut adrift.  As far as I was concerned the breach of trust to which my staff had been subjected was unacceptable and, consequently, I left.

The move south was an enormous leap of faith into the unknown at the age of 47 with, as I have said, four children still in full time education.  It came after much prayer culminating in a lunch-time of prayer in Bradford Cathedral during which I believe I heard a voice which said to me, “Go and see what I shall show you”

Now I know that such experiences have to be tested and so I related the words and their context to an experienced Christian whose spirituality I trusted.  When she said that the words spoke to her, in other words that they sounded to be from God, then in much trepidation but with the support of my family we left the north of England for a new job and the start of college life.

We had decided to live in Berkhamsted because of the sign over an Arts & Craft shop on the High Street.  It said, “We are here to serve the Risen Lord.”  This was the sign for which Sue and I had been praying and so I enquired at the shop as to where the Lord was worshipped.  As a result I was introduced to the Parish Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Sunnyside.

When I tell you that one of my daughters-in-law now runs that same Arts & Crafts shop, I am compelled to reflect on where prayer can lead.  I had the privilege of conducting Lawrence and Jo’s wedding in the self-same Sunnyside church on the weekend after my ordination.  By the way, my ordination took place not in St Albans Abbey but in Bradford Cathedral in July 1989 after our recent return to the North.

A further turning point came when, after serving for two years as curate at Rawdon Parish church on the outskirts of Leeds and working as a consultant on my own account, I was invited to serve full-time as curate at the parish church in Ilkley. As a result I was no longer a lawyer or a consultant but now a full-time priest.  I could have remained full-time in the church but it was not to be because, when it was time to move on, the church could not find a placement which was able to accommodate a very difficult family situation which had arisen.  So, I now found myself out of work and in what seemed like a wilderness.

At this point I want to digress for a moment or two to talk about an item of attire ‘preaching tabs’ as they are known to clerics.  They are part of standard wear in formal situations for clergy of an evangelical inclination but are also obligatory dress for lawyers in their role as advocates, whether barristers or solicitors, to whom they may be referred to as ‘bands.’

This overlap in symbolism between law and church is no mere accident but is in fact indicative of their common origins at least in this country.  The role of the Lord Chancellor, whatever might have become of it in modern times, began life as a high church official who was also regarded as Keeper of the King’s conscience.  At court he was a trusted confidante and advisor to the Monarch - bearing in mind that such men, as exemplified by Wolsey, were often also cardinals or princes of the church.

Out of that role at court alongside the monarch sprang a parallel court system exercised by the Lord Chancellor dispensing justice based on an equitable view of matters and thus ameliorating what could sometimes be seen as a harshness and inflexibility in the operation of the Common Law dispensed by the monarch’s courts.

Just as an aside, we hear the faint echoes of this historical emergence of our legal system in the names given to the Divisions of the High Court in earlier years.  Indeed the very word ‘Court’ reminds us of the way in which the King would go on royal progress round the country to dispense justice, sentence criminals and settle disputed.  Hence the way in which judge’s travel round their circuits to do the same today exercising their role on behalf of the Monarch.

The Queen’s Bench Division presided over by the Lord Chief Justice is still the branch which focuses on the common law.  The Chancery Division, presided over by the Lord Chancellor, deals with cases where it has been difficult to find justice in the common law approach; an example with which we may be familiar relates to the seeking of Judicial Review of Government or other beauracratic decisions. 

Those who in earlier years appeared to argue cases for the often illiterate or inarticulate people who came before the courts became barristers and those who solicited work for them were to emerge as solicitors.  Those tabs or bands were worn to mark them out because, like the clergy, the wearer was seeking the sort of justice tempered with mercy dispensed by Moses in accordance with the two tablets of stone received by him on the Holy Mountain.  Hence the reference to preaching ‘tabs’ – short for ‘tablets’ and the link to advocacy and law.

I have mentioned all this by way of a practical demonstration that perhaps my pursuit of these two roles can be seen as slightly less incongruous than might otherwise be the case!

Returning to my story - in a strange sequence of events, Sue & I found ourselves on the move once again - this time to East Yorkshire.  There the family situation which had been difficult earlier, resolved itself but another, the third, turning point came with my spending two years in and then emerging from clinical depression  - ‘ dark night of the soul’ as someone referred to it..

Maybe this was the final stripping away of the remnants of the image I might once have had of myself as a highflying lawyer, senior building society manager or consultant.  Depression was a bleak and isolating experience but I was blessed with a very supportive family & friends, and I emerged.

I found myself able to serve a number of congregations who were without a priest and one benefice in particular in due course welcomed me as its ‘House-for-Duty Priest-in-Charge (that is to say unpaid but with a Rectory to live in rent-free), although I think that my wife Sue’s ability as an organist had more than a little to do with it - two for the price of one perhaps!

Thus began four very happy and fulfilling years of service based at Burton Agnes, serving 4 rural parishes. I learned to adjust to the pace of rural life, to recognise the demands placed on the farming community and to take the unexpected in my stride.

For example a funeral visit found me talking to a man in his 80’s who had been married to his deceased wife for over 60 years.  Neither the man nor his good lady could have stood over 5’2” tall judging from his height when I met him and from the wedding photograph he showed me.

Imagine then, my surprise when he announced in reply to the question, “Is there one thing about your wife that stands out for you after 60 years of marriage?” he replied, “She made the best cement in East Yorkshire.”  When I asked him to explain it came down to this.  When war broke out Violet was considered too short for the Services, so she borrowed an uncle’s small truck, acquired a cement mixer and offered her services as a repairer of airfield runways.  That was her job for the rest of the war and a letter from the authorities at Leconfield testified to the ‘excellence of her work.’

So here I am.  My “House-for-Duty” days are over.  They were brought to an end by the repercussions, now mercifully in remission, of a triple heart bypass.  In their place has come a great deal of writing, some copies of one fruit of which, I have brought with me namely “Sally’s Angel” a short story book for children up to the age of say 11 as well, I am told, for some adults of an inquiring mind.

So, what have I learned on my journey?  How, perhaps, do I view the roles of lawyer and priest as I look back on them?

Well, as a lawyer I provided a service, but as a priest I was the service.  What I mean by that is, that as a lawyer I took the instructions of my client and for a fee carried out work to achieve their objectives.  I got peoples’ houses bought and sold, obtained divorces, settled estates and defended the accused.  I did not become involved beyond doing the job required.  Indeed in many ways an involved lawyer is not much use.

However, the priest cannot easily be effective without a measure of involvement. ‘Time’ is the priest’s gift but is what the lawyer charges for.  The lawyer may sympathise but the priest must, whenever possible, empathise.

I have also learned that the work of the Holy Spirit, that mysterious third person of the Christian Trinity, is very much alive and well in many more people today than we may perhaps give credit for.  From my own life I will leave you with one last story about this from the recent past. 

In anticipation of some surgery I asked a priest to lay hands on me by way of preparation.  He did this as part of the prayers at a mid-week communion service and he also anointed me.  During this process I experienced a figure I recognised as Jesus coming to me and passing into me, and I heard the words,’ You in me and me in you.’  I felt a tremendous sense of reassurance.

The following day the operation took place under a general anaesthetic and, as I was being prepared, the anaesthetist asked me what I though I might dream about.  I told him that I did not dream in these circumstances, but had been told that I said things.  I asked him to remember if I said anything of note, and he promised to do so. 

After the operation the surgeon came to check on me and asked if I had seen the anaesthetist.  When I said I had not, he smiled broadly and said he would send him round.  When I asked if I had said anything he said, “Oh yes!”, but would say no more.  It was, he said, the anaesthetist’s story.

The anaesthetist, when he arrived, told me that after the anaesthetic had taken effect and I was well and truly ‘out’, I had suddenly said, “I see Jesus coming,” and all the indicators on the monitoring equipment went completely haywire causing absolute mayhem.  He eventually got things under control but said he’d never seen anything like it and didn’t want to ever again! When Jesus says, “You in me and me in you” it is something I profoundly believe in.

How do I look back on all this?  Well, I could sum it up in this way “true love has no need of lawyers.”  Jesus had no time for them and in my experience, on both sides of the fence, lawyers are only brought in when sadly love has been ejected.

On a personal note, what God has shown me, following that Bradford Cathedral lunchtime, has been a roller coaster of experiences which have been exhilarating, humbling and at times, inspiring.  And I would not have missed any of it.