Centenarian retired solicitor and Dunkirk veteran Neville Spencer is still on the roll - 80 years post-qualification. ‘Why not stay on the roll?’ he says, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong!’ Spencer qualified in 1932, and a few years later ‘upped sticks’ and joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment to fight in WW2.

Posted overseas in the early days of the conflict, he became a prisoner of war during the debacle around Dunkirk. ‘Not very interesting being a PoW and we had a fairly rough time, but it could have been a lot worse,’ he says. Returning to civilian life, he worked as a solicitor until retiring aged 70, some 30 years ago. ‘The Law Society was a different kettle of fish in my day,’ he tells Obiter. ‘It was much stricter.’ We’d love to hear from other practitioners who have been on the roll a long time. Can anyone beat 80 years?