Jonathan Hirst QC and Professor Jolowicz QC (Hon) with Burley and Simon Perry

entirely negative. Not so now. Sydney ended the con “I tell you what we should do, we should write the other side a letter.” Quite what this was likely to achieve was never identified. Yet Sydney’s magic was such that this new tactic had the effect that everyone, including Edwardes, left the meeting upbeat, convinced that a new and effective strategy had been formulated.

Roger Buckley went on the bench in 1989 and Nick Lyell ceased practice on becoming a minister in the Thatcher government. Hilary Heilbron had taken silk in in 1987 and Jonathan Hirst in 1990. Tony Jolowicz became an honorary silk at the same time as Hirst. John Griffiths, who spent much of his career in Hong Kong and was Attorney General of Hong Kong 1979–83, joined. Griffiths was a wonderful advocate but might have been even more effective had he spent time reading the papers. David Anderson was another significant joiner after pupillage. Mark Hapgood, who edited Paget on Banking, joined from other chambers as did David Lloyd Jones. William Wood did too, but only just.

Left to Right: Professor Jolowicz and Jonathan Hirst taking silk with Burley (left) and Simon Perry, 1990

His name was discussed at a chambers meeting as a potential recruit. One senior silk who should be nameless was not very enthusiastic. Wood had appeared in front of the silk sitting as a deputy high court judge and had not impressed. In the event, despite these reservations, it was decided to offer Wood a tenancy. When he arrived it became apparent that the silk had had in mind someone entirely different.

Bill Wood had been instructed in his previous chambers as the junior junior in a long insurance trial, CTI v Oceanus.98 Mr Justice Lloyd had found against his clients and rejected their factual case. None of the three substantive reasons the judge gave survived an excoriating judgment from the Court of Appeal. One of the reasons the judge had given was that the clients had given late discovery. In the Court of Appeal it was explained that the judge had not been aware the reason for the late discovery was that the documents in question had been mislaid under Wood’s sofa at home.

In 1989 Bob Alexander departed. After his year as Chairman of the Bar in 1985–86, Bob was invited to be chairman of the Takeover Panel. This provided him with City experience. NatWest had had problems after the Blue Arrow affair and were looking for someone with a legal background to clean things up. The outgoing chairman, Lord Boardman, asked to see Bob, whom he knew. He said he wanted to speak to him about the chairmanship of the bank. Bob said, “It’s no good asking me, I can’t advise you on whom you should appoint.” Boardman said Bob had misunderstood. Bob was so taken aback that he had to send Boardman away whilst he thought of some questions to ask him about the job. Thus Alexander became Chair of NatWest. Matters did not start well when Burley and Alexander had a rare altercation after Burley refused to return a brief he had accepted for Bob, which would have delayed his departure.

Perhaps that was not the happiest part of Bob’s distinguished career. He retired from the chairmanship in 1999 but never had an easy ride, coming into the bank without prior banking experience. He had become Lord Alexander in 1987, after the thankless task of acting for the government in the Spycatcher litigation where the government’s efforts to injunct Peter Wright’s memoirs, in flagrant breach of the Official Secrets Act, had been significantly undermined by the refusal of the Australian

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