Simpson, my principal, was in good humour for some days after he learned of the dismissal of the managing clerk of the highly respected - and he thought snobbish - firm down the road. He wrote to the senior partner offering both condolences and help in the certain knowledge both would be rejected out of hand.

Simpson had been with the firm for years; the first to arrive each morning, the last to leave, no holidays. A classic syndrome unnoticed in those days and probably still today. After he contracted measles a sheaf of unstamped conveyances and mortgages fell out of the cupboard in his room.

But Simpson was tempting nemesis. He acquired an assistant solicitor, Pye, a man with pomaded hair and yellow string gloves - without taking references - and I, as the articled clerk, and a not very good one, was assigned to him for training. I thought something was wrong when, one day in the bear garden at the law courts, he said ‘good morning master’ and identified the individual as Master Smith, when I knew full well the man was one of the ushers. I was far too polite or intimidated to mention it, and it was, of course, easy to mistake the six-foot-plus broad-shouldered master for the diminutive, uniformed functionary.

The trouble came one lunchtime when Simpson left his sandwiches half-eaten and rushed out of the office. It was a full week before I learned what had happened. Pye had been having good results in the magistrates’ courts and was developing quite a following among the local villains. There was, however, a particularly disagreeable stipendiary who, when bored and irritated, would begin to look through the law list to find the details of the advocate annoying him. He would say rather than ask: ‘Are you sure you are qualified?’

And thumb through the pages until he came to the relevant entry when he would sigh and shut the book. That morning Pye was his target. If he had held his nerve things might have been all right. After all I seem to recall Lord Goodman’s entry was once omitted by mistake. However, instead of brazening things out, Pye panicked and fessed up. He had never qualified.

Quite by chance I met him again perhaps 20 years later. He was still the same immaculately turned-out man, now with a new pair of gloves, but if he recognised me he gave no sign.

James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor