Hosting Andrew

How would you like to swap lives with someone else? Perhaps wake up in another lawyer’s body; someone who has a trophy spouse, is a partner in a top firm and has a Bentley. Sounds too good to be true. Perhaps the high life is not all you hoped for. 

Hosting Andrew is a great tale about two solicitors who have an operation at the same time and in the same hospital. Only one wakes up and he is in the wrong body. He is a partner in a big City firm, unhealthy and overweight, with several almost uncontrollable desires and appetites. The story is about how to live, not just in another’s shoes, but in their body. Things do not go well and our hero has several adventures, including going to his own funeral and seeing another man creeping around his widow.

Author John Lawrance was articled at Austin Ryder in Enfield before being made a partner in the 1970s. After a spell running a branch office in Welwyn Garden City, he opened his own practice in Potters Bar and served clients in this area of north London and Hertfordshire for almost 40 years. His practice started as a general one but soon became a specialist conveyancing firm.

The idea for Hosting Andrew came to him when he awoke from a minor operation a few years ago and experienced the change from deep, anaesthetics-induced sleep to waking with joy and relief to be alive and surrounded by family. He had a childhood ambition to be an author and wrote a romantic novella at university. It was not published but he was encouraged to continue to write. However life, family and career got in the way until retirement.

This is a very moral and philosophical story examining the temptations and difficulties different lawyers face. Can you be unfaithful to your widow with a person to whom you are married? Being rich has its worries and risks, but at least you can be worried in comfort.

David Pickup is a partner at Pickup & Scott Solicitors, Aylesbury