Thirty-five years ago, not long after the Gazette became a weekly, I wrote the editorials, writes James Morton. Not all of them of course – since I didn’t know a thing about anything except criminal law (and not much about that) but a fair number. For some reason, the then editor had a bit of an aversion to writing them.

To celebrate my appointment, she invited me to lunch in what I believe was Trattoria Est in Chancery Lane, a bit below what was Hodgson’s Book Auctions. The event was memorable in its way. After ordering vichyssoise, which came without any chives on top, she imperiously demanded the waiter bring her some. He brought a handful and chopped a few into the soup. She wouldn’t let him take the rest away and spent a good deal of the lunch plaiting them into a coronet and, Hedda Gabler-like, put it in her hair.

We must have eaten a good deal because she split her skirt and had the waiter telephone (no mobiles then) the Gazette to bring some safety pins around before she would move.

Back in those bad old days, the catering was fairly rudimentary at the Hall. I remember once going with my assistant solicitor when she ordered veal and ham pie. It was covered in mould, but there was no sympathy for us. The attitude was she should have eaten it faster. Coffee had to be taken upstairs in the library and to compound things, a mouse was spotted. With cries of ‘mousey’, several elderly solicitors began a chase after the poor beast – picking books off the shelves and either trying to swat the mouse with them or drop them on it. ‘Damn near got him with Archbold!’ Fortunately, it escaped.

The best legal lunches I had were with Barry Rose, who used to own law journal Justice of the Peace. A portly and delightful man who always wore a stiff collar, with a bowler hat in winter and panama with an MCC ribbon in summer, Barry had his regular table at Simpsons. Lunches were long and heavy. He was what my grandmother would call a ‘good trencherman’ and treacle pudding followed roast beef, which followed potted shrimps. As we left getting on for 5pm one day, the waiter we passed said: ‘We’ll have your table ready for 6.45pm Mr Rose.’

James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor