George Carman QC

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a barrister. A virtuoso of the courtroom, he's made his name successfully defending the famous, from the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe to show business celebrities such as Peter Adamson, Mariah Aitken, and Ken Dodd.

Presenter0:42

His education did not at first prepare him for such public activity. Indeed, for two years he studied to become a Roman Catholic priest. In the end, the secular world of the Oxford Union, public speaking, and the Bar were to prove more inviting. Now, aged sixty, he is one of this country's most expensive and sought after Q C's. His clients pay him for the elegance of his legal mind, and, not least, for his persuasive manner with juries. He is George

Presenter1:11

It's a life synopsis which tempts one to wonder if there are any links between the the priest you didn't become and the advocate you did. Do the two roles have anything in common, do you think?

George Carman QC1:22

Well, I doubt if they have, except that I imagine both uh wish to convey messages to the general public at large. The priest's message, I imagine, is a spiritual one, and the barrister is the message of his client.

Presenter1:35

But there's an element, is there not, of the confessional, surely, when people come to you and sit in your chambers, the client coming to tell you his troubles, isn't he?

Presenter1:43

turning to you for absolution in a way.

George Carman QC1:46

Whenever he turns to me for absolution, he turns to me to obtain absolution for him.

Presenter1:52

But in that moment when he sits before you.

Presenter1:55

Feeling terribly vulnerable. Don't you feel sometimes like a priest?

George Carman QC1:59

No, I think as I've said to medical friends, one feels uh more like a doctor, uh the difference being that the doctor only sees the uh patient naked physically, we have to see them naked uh mentally.

Presenter2:13

By the way, why did you give up the priesthood?

George Carman QC2:15

Oh, I hadn't got a vocation, and I discovered that I liked women.

Presenter2:20

Ah, that that's the truth of it, is.

George Carman QC2:22

I think so, yes.

Presenter2:22

How old were you at the time?

George Carman QC2:24

I was about sixteen.

Presenter2:25

So, how are you going to manage without women on this desert island? You haven't got a jewelry either to declaim to. How are you going to manage?

George Carman QC2:32

It all sounds an intolerable hardship.

Presenter2:34

Will you hate it?

George Carman QC2:35

Uh I shall learn to live with it. One has to.

Presenter2:38

And is there comfort for you in music, do you think?

George Carman QC2:41

I find it a great comfort and pleasure in relaxation.

Presenter2:44

So what will you um play first of all?

George Carman QC2:47

Well, I would like first of all to take with me and play Yehudi Meduin's uh rendering of Beethoven's violin concerto. This I heard him play at the Albert Hall at a memorial concert for his sister Hepzebar.

George Carman QC3:02

It was so moving that I went out and bought the record and played it almost continuously for a month, and it's remained in my mind ever since.

Presenter4:04

Sir Yehudi Menouin playing part of Beethoven's violin concerto in D Major, with the new Philemonia orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer.

Presenter4:12

So the barrister, George Carmen, who sits behind his big polished desk in the Temple, listening to these anxious clients, is is more of a doctor. Is he more of a a psychiatrist, perhaps, analysing the material and looking for its weaknesses and its strengths?

George Carman QC4:27

I don't think it's a psychiatrist. I think it is, of course, uh an analysis of human affairs.

George Carman QC4:34

which has to be made in order to prepare it for presentation to a court.

Presenter4:40

Is there also part of you that that's a playwright, though, as well? Aren't you looking for good lines to deliver?

George Carman QC4:45

Don't think you're looking for good lines, you're looking for powerful argument and persuasive argument, you're you're

George Carman QC4:52

isolating the weaknesses, and considering how they can best be presented.

Presenter4:57

Yes, but you're known, aren't you, for your your good lines, the the the kind of plain speaking lines that appeal to the jury. One one thinks of the most recent one, I think correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you say in the Ken Dodd case, some accountants make good comedians, but comedians don't make good accountants

George Carman QC5:03

Yeah.

George Carman QC5:12

Um something on those lines, I fear. Um of course one has to uh express things in a way that uh a jury finds attractive.

George Carman QC5:21

That's quite different from uh descending into good lines as if one were a comedian oneself.

Presenter5:26

Is the is the strategy of a case uh down to you? I mean, do you sit and listen to the solicitor and the client, and then do you uh think, right, I know how we're going to play this?

George Carman QC5:39

You do it as a process of dialogue with the solicitor and of course with junior counsel, but at the end of the day the final decision is usually down to you because you're the advocate who's going to present it.

George Carman QC5:53

And the final strategy is an important matter that has to be determined.

Presenter5:58

And is that a matter of experience, or is that?

Presenter6:02

Inspiration on the barrister's part.

George Carman QC6:04

Experience in the main, logic in part, and the final element in the equation, I suppose, is instinct.

Presenter6:12

And do you sit quietly, having had all of these discussions with the solicitor and the client, do you sit quietly somewhere and think it through and think through this structure and this strategy, and then say, Right, I've got it. I know what we're going to do with this case.

George Carman QC6:26

In the bath you think about it, in a motor car you think about it, at every idle moment you think about it, until there emerges the right decision as you conceive it.

Presenter6:36

So you might decide, for example, whether or not a defendant, your client, should go into the witness box?

George Carman QC6:42

You give advice on it, uh it's eventually his decision.

Presenter6:47

But if he didn't agree to take your advice, you might refuse to represent him.

George Carman QC6:51

No no, he has a constitutional right to give evidence, uh which in no way you can veto. You give advice. I normally find clients follow by advice.

Presenter7:01

So it was you who decided that Jeremy Thorpe should stay out of the box, was it?

George Carman QC7:04

I I can't comment on that.

Presenter7:07

I should merely say at this point perhaps that it is considered one of the great masterstrokes of modern advocacy, but we'll leave it there and have your next record.

George Carman QC7:16

Well, my next record uh r really arises from my debt to my own mother, who died when I was a young man.

George Carman QC7:24

Uh she was an Irish woman. She gave me great encouragement.

George Carman QC7:28

She was a great loss in my life when she died so young. And when I was a little boy she used to sing to me,

George Carman QC7:35

Uh when Irish eyes are smiling, and that is a record I'd like to take with me onto the desert island.

Speaker 47:42

When Irish eyes are smiling

Speaker 47:49

Sure it's like a morn in spring

Speaker 47:58

In the lived of Irish laughter.

Speaker 48:07

You can hear the A.

Speaker 48:11

Injured.

Presenter8:13

Anne Shelton, singing When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, and memories of your mother, George Carmen. Did she work for a living?

George Carman QC8:20

Yes, indeed. My mother had a business, a a fashion business, which she worked extremely hard.

George Carman QC8:27

and helped really pay for my education and that of my sister.

Presenter8:30

This was in Blackpool.

George Carman QC8:31

In Bagpool, indeed.

Presenter8:32

And what did your father do?

George Carman QC8:33

My father was also a business man. He was in the furniture business, but during the war he had to work at a factory.

George Carman QC8:40

having been conscripted into it.

Presenter8:42

So they both had shops, your parents?

George Carman QC8:43

They both had shops and businesses, yes.

Presenter8:45

So there was no history of of of advocacy in the family at all.

George Carman QC8:49

Not that I'm aware of.

Presenter8:50

So where do you think it all came from?

George Carman QC8:52

Oh, I'm sure it came from the Irish gene somewhere.

Presenter8:56

How early was it, then, when people noticed, or began to notice, that that young George was rather good on his hind legs?

George Carman QC9:02

Oh, that I don't know, but uh there was the School Debating Society.

George Carman QC9:06

and there was a great desire in the late teenage period

George Carman QC9:10

to try and get involved in public speaking.

Presenter9:12

So you were much encouraged, were you, by everybody?

George Carman QC9:15

but particularly my mother and the headmaster of my school.

Presenter9:19

How did your mother encourage you?

George Carman QC9:21

Well, she encouraged me in my ambitions when I wanted to go to the bar as a

George Carman QC9:26

Uh a youth.

George Carman QC9:28

She encouraged me to get into Oxford and not go to Manchester University.

George Carman QC9:33

uh which was nearby.

George Carman QC9:35

And she encouraged me in spite of uh a lot of warnings.

George Carman QC9:39

and that the bar was for people with money and connections.

Presenter9:42

So it wasn't she who wanted you to be a priest?

George Carman QC9:44

No, no, not at all.

Presenter9:45

Who who did want you to be a priest? Where did that come?

George Carman QC9:47

I think that was my own romantic folly.

George Carman QC9:50

Um I was much impressed by and admired the priests I met when I was a boy attending church.

George Carman QC9:57

and no doubt I wished to follow in their footsteps and realize I wasn't cut out for it.

Presenter10:02

Um so having rejected the priesthood, as you said, at the age of sixteen, did you immediately opt for the law, or did you consider other options?

George Carman QC10:09

Well, I think in the arrogance of youth I drew up a short list, thought about the Foreign Office, and thought it was not for me, and eventually, full of romantic ideas, again, settled upon the bar.

Presenter10:22

Do you ever regret not going into politics? You were selected once for a Conservative seat, weren't you?

George Carman QC10:27

Well, one was on the short list, one had been adopted as a Conservative candidate.

George Carman QC10:32

I was a very young man, in my very early twenties.

George Carman QC10:36

and I was given some wise advice that you can't really combine a full time career at the bar with politics.

George Carman QC10:42

Of course it would have been a privilege to have been in the house.

George Carman QC10:45

But I'm very content that I've had the privilege of my life at the bar.

Presenter10:49

But if a politician can be said um the public spiritedness of his role apart if he can be said to be in search of power

Presenter10:57

In his job, what would you say a good advocate is in search of?

George Carman QC11:05

Successful persuasion.

Presenter11:08

And money?

George Carman QC11:09

Oh, I think money follows. It's not a career I advise anybody to adopt for money alone.

George Carman QC11:16

There has to be a profound commitment to the profession and a great enjoyment of it, but I'm sure that applies in many walks of life.

Presenter11:23

Record number three.

George Carman QC11:25

Well, I'd like to take to my desert island another memory of childhood, and that is the wartime victory of Montgomery at Alabane.

George Carman QC11:35

which uh lifted up the spirits of this country so much and uh

George Carman QC11:39

impressed me with its great success as a child.

George Carman QC11:43

when the Eighth Army stole from the Germans the great marching tune Lilly Marlane and the incomparable Marlina Dietrich to sing it.

Speaker 411:52

Outside the barracks

Speaker 411:54

By the corner light

Speaker 411:57

I'll always stand and wait for you at night.

Speaker 412:01

We will create.

Speaker 412:04

A world for two, I'll wait for you the whole night through for you, Lily Molly.

Speaker 412:15

Uh

Presenter12:15

Oh you, Lily, Molly.

Presenter12:19

Marlena Dietrich singing Lily Marlene.

Presenter12:23

I read, um George Carmen, that you were ordered by the master of Balliol to get a first. Is that true, and if so, why?

George Carman QC12:32

Oh, I I think it's true. I'm I'm bound to say that Baliol had this tradition of expecting the best from you, or better than your best.

George Carman QC12:40

and indeed a diplomatic order was given.

George Carman QC12:44

and I reluctantly endeavoured to comply.

Presenter12:46

Why did he feel that he had to order you to do so? Were you looking set for failure?

George Carman QC12:51

Oh, I think I was lazy. I got disappointing results in my first year, and I was enjoying Oxford far too much.

Presenter12:57

Did you take to all of it quite easily, then, Oxford and and and the Union?

George Carman QC13:00

I loved it. I know people say it was the best period of one's life, but in my case it truly was. It was an exciting new world.

George Carman QC13:08

Balliol I still believe to be the greatest college at Oxford.

George Carman QC13:13

Um and I I've never lost uh

George Carman QC13:16

the feeling of that the doors were really open to the world when I went up to Oxford.

Presenter13:23

And so the the the uh people you met there at Oxford, the uh the products of of Britain's best public schools, didn't intimidate you in any way?

George Carman QC13:33

I don't think I could confess to intimidation.

George Carman QC13:36

I think many of them had advantages in life from their great public schools that had been denied to me, but I tried to make up for it.

Presenter13:43

You had some impressive contemporaries, didn't you? Um William Rees Mark, Dick Taverne, Robin Day.

George Carman QC13:49

Indeed, indeed, and uh one has remained friends with some of them since.

Presenter13:54

And of course Jeremy Thorpe.

George Carman QC13:56

Je Jeremy Thorpe was a contemporary at Trinity College, and I knew him through the Oxford Union at that time, and wasn't to meet him again for some thirty years when I came to defend him.

Presenter14:08

Can you remember that moment, that that thirty years later, when when the telephone rang and you were retained to represent him?

George Carman QC14:15

Yes, obviously it was a moment of great importance, professionally, uh great anxiety and great responsibility.

George Carman QC14:23

and Jeremy Thorpe was, if I may be allowed to say so, a marvellous and perfect client.

Presenter14:30

That is to say, he accepted all of your advice and did what you what he was told.

George Carman QC14:34

He accepted advice and he remained in uh

George Carman QC14:37

good spirits throughout the lengthy ordeal of the trial.

Presenter14:41

And how did you cope throughout the trial? I think the defendants afterwards were constantly asked how they had coped. How did you cope? Did you live, breathe, eat, sleep it, for all of those weeks and months?

George Carman QC14:51

I think it's fair to say one did, and one was very tired when it was over, and very grateful.

Presenter14:57

But you knew obviously that this was, as it proved to be, a turning point in your career. Do you think all barristers

Presenter15:04

Have to have that the big break.

George Carman QC15:07

There's never any one big break.

George Carman QC15:10

But there are critical, decisive moments, and I do believe there is a tide in the affairs of men.

George Carman QC15:17

And that was such a moment.

Presenter15:20

But you have to take the tide right, and you have to get it right, because if not

Presenter15:25

It's disaster thereafter.

George Carman QC15:26

You have to capture the moment and be ready for it.

Presenter15:30

Shall we capture record number four?

George Carman QC15:32

Indeed. In the desert island I imagine that uh one may be deprived of uh the sight of uh many beautiful things, uh and one of the most beautiful things is to see uh a ballet danced beautifully to romantic and beautiful music.

George Carman QC15:50

and therefore I would like to take with me Tchaikovsky's overture to Romeo and Juliet.

Presenter16:51

Part of Tchaikovsky's overture, Romeo and Juliet, played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir George Schulte. We rather leapt there, George Carmen, from from university to the moment of your big break, which was in nineteen seventy nine. We leapt some thirty years. What about the intervening time, the hard graft, the hard flog to the top?

George Carman QC17:12

Well, after a pupillage in London as a young man, when I was washing up in lions, libel reading for the news of the world and uh teaching people how to read and write,

George Carman QC17:23

I went up north, practised in Manchester. The Northern Circuit is a great centre for training the bar.

George Carman QC17:31

and I had the privilege of a number of years in full-time practice there.

George Carman QC17:36

There were the lean years. After four years I claimed I earned no more than a Manchester bus driver without overtime.

George Carman QC17:43

But one got the brakes.

George Carman QC17:46

And so I started to do a few cases in London.

George Carman QC17:49

and get a little bit more of a national spread, but there were some very great advocates and lawyers on the circuit, and I benefited much from their tuition.

Presenter17:58

But your profession is prone to fashion in that sense, isn't it? That uh that really you need to be spotted, you need to be patronized, and you need to become fashionable.

George Carman QC18:08

Yes, there are there are lucky breaks, and you're only as good as your last case but at the same time it is normally, like any other profession, a question of hard work.

George Carman QC18:19

uh commitment uh and um

George Carman QC18:23

Optimism. People notice over the years how barristers develop, and slowly they become uh more established uh and some become fashionable.

Presenter18:31

You've had your lost cases, of course. You represented Lord Kagan when he stood on a charged with false accounting and theft, I think, and he lost and went to prison.

George Carman QC18:40

It was, in fact, Lord Cagan's company. It's been misquoted publicly that I appeared for Lord Cagan, which I did not.

George Carman QC18:46

But of course one's lost many cases, and sometimes tragic cases.

Presenter18:51

Yeah.

George Carman QC18:51

But it was he who

Presenter18:51

But it was he who went to prison, wasn't it?

George Carman QC18:53

And he who went to prison indeed, but I didn't defend him.

Presenter18:55

But what kind of emotion does a barrister feel on those occasions when he loses and when his client does go to prison?

George Carman QC19:04

Of course it's always a moment of uh sadness to see the impact on uh family and friends of a disastrous situation, be it in the civil or the criminal law.

George Carman QC19:14

Uh but uh as like surgery, you do your best uh and you can't do more than that.

Presenter19:20

So can you then go home and pour yourself a large whisky and sit back and forget about it?

George Carman QC19:24

In my case, not a large whiskey, because I don't drink it. You don't forget it.

Presenter19:28

A large glass of champagne.

George Carman QC19:29

A lot of glasses of champagne. You analyze it, you try and learn from it, you constantly try and improve your own performance. You've got to always be

George Carman QC19:40

the most stern critic that exists of yourself.

Presenter19:44

And what emotion do you experience when when a client for whom you've won an acquittal reveals some years later that he was in fact guilty?

George Carman QC19:51

That's only happened to me once, I'm afraid, well publicised, and th that is a moment of regret that you've been misled, or, more importantly, that the court has been misled.

Presenter20:03

But do you personally feel deceived?

George Carman QC20:07

I suppose one would, and one did.

Presenter20:09

And did you feel professionally foolish?

George Carman QC20:12

No, because once acted in good faith on instructions.

Presenter20:17

Record number five.

George Carman QC20:19

There is a lady who uh

George Carman QC20:22

has sung so hauntingly in the past, now dead,

George Carman QC20:27

for whom I have a great admiration.

George Carman QC20:30

And her name is Edith Piave.

George Carman QC20:32

And uh

George Carman QC20:34

I would like to take

George Carman QC20:35

To the Desert Island With Me, her recording of Nonge Regrette Royen, because it sums up my own philosophy of life that one should not have regrets.

Speaker 420:46

Oh Radoria.

George Carman QC20:48

And uh

Speaker 420:51

No, sorry, I'm not sure.

Speaker 420:56

Nila Vomafé.

Speaker 421:01

Nila Mar, Usabe Bianega.

Speaker 421:09

Riador Riya.

Presenter21:10

Not really. Uh

George Carman QC21:10

Yeah.

Presenter21:10

Ah

Speaker 421:12

No runaway.

Presenter21:12

Uh

Presenter21:13

Oh run away.

Presenter21:16

It is piaf and non jeur gret touring.

Presenter21:19

Why is it, George Carmen, a golden rule that a good advocate should never ask a question to which he does not have a strong idea of the answer?

George Carman QC21:29

I think because uh

George Carman QC21:31

It's highly dangerous to ask questions to which you don't know the answer. It can damage a case enormously.

George Carman QC21:38

and its intelligent anticipation.

George Carman QC21:41

It's a intelligent forecast of the way the evidence should emerge.

George Carman QC21:46

And of course it's a question of strict economy.

George Carman QC21:49

Uh do not venture into areas unknown.

Presenter21:53

It's dangerous territory.

George Carman QC21:54

It's dangerous.

Presenter21:55

But it could also be that you might uncover something which uh might not put your client in a good light, but at the same time it might be something that's entirely truthful and accurate.

George Carman QC22:04

Of course the truth will probably out anyway, and there's always a very good advocate, hopefully, on the other side.

Presenter22:09

But if there isn't, you might have missed the opportunity to um reveal a truth.

George Carman QC22:16

Yes, the one one's bound to say, and it may come as a shock to you and others.

George Carman QC22:22

The art of advocacy is not the search after the truth, it's the presentation of the case and it's for the court to decide where the truth lies. The art of the advocate is to present his client's case.

Presenter22:33

to present his client not just his case but to present his client in the best possible light.

George Carman QC22:38

Certainly.

Presenter22:39

So to that extent you're perhaps party to obscuring the truth on occasions?

George Carman QC22:44

No. Um as has been said by other people, the art of uh one side is to present the case black, the art of the other side is to present it white.

George Carman QC22:54

And it's for the judge or the jury to determine the exact shade of grey.

Presenter22:58

So everyone, you're saying, has a right to expect a a professional representation from you, despite what you might know or might be hiding.

George Carman QC23:06

You don't pass judgment in advance. That's for the court and not for you.

George Carman QC23:10

no more than the surgeon acts as some kind of moral censor.

George Carman QC23:15

He performs the same task as well, whether he is operating on a prostitute or a nun.

George Carman QC23:19

It's the same standard of professional skill brought to bear.

Presenter23:23

But on the other hand, talking quietly with your client you might have a jolly good idea of exactly how the land lay.

George Carman QC23:30

You clearly have private views as to the strength or weakness of the client's case, and sometimes it's important to convey those to the client, but at the end of the day you act on his or her instructions.

Presenter23:41

You also, of course, I mean, have your own reputation to consider, presumably. I mean, one presumes in taking on a case you're not going to take it on if you feel you're likely to lose.

George Carman QC23:52

But life is not quite like that. We do take on cases if they lie within your province.

George Carman QC23:57

And uh

George Carman QC23:59

It is proper for you to take that case.

George Carman QC24:01

and the question of your own reputation should not enter into that consideration. We do not censor the number of cases we take on, nor does any advocate, by regard to one's personal feelings about the case. It would be a misconception of the role of the advocate.

Presenter24:17

And indeed you acted for a spy, Geoffrey Prime, didn't you, back in nineteen eighty two?

George Carman QC24:22

Indeed, Geoffrey Prime, he was pleading guilty to a very major charge of spying at GCHQ at Cheltenham.

George Carman QC24:30

But it was important that his case was properly presented before the court, and indeed he received, and rightly so, a very long period of imprisonment.

Presenter24:39

Did you have any personal feelings at the time on on taking on about taking on that case?

George Carman QC24:45

personal horror at what he'd done and uh

George Carman QC24:48

A degree of personal dislike of the man, but quite irrelevant to the task in hand.

Presenter24:52

So you don't allow that to uh affect your judgment at the time at all?

George Carman QC24:56

If you did, you'd be a poor advocate.

Presenter24:59

Shall we have record number six?

George Carman QC25:01

Yes, well record number six is uh Ken Dodd singing happiness.

George Carman QC25:07

I defended him professionally last year.

George Carman QC25:10

And uh after the uh trial of the case,

George Carman QC25:14

He gave a charity concert in Liverpool, and for the first time in my life

George Carman QC25:18

I heard him perform in public, and he sang this song with such infectious warmth that when I want to be cheered up on the desert island I shall play this record with pleasure.

Speaker 425:30

Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I possess. I thank the Lord that I've been blessed with more than my share of happiness.

Speaker 425:45

To me this world is a wonderful place. I'm the luckiest human in the human race. I've got no silver and I've got no gold, but I've got happiness in my soul.

Presenter25:57

Ken Dodd and Happiness. So you you hadn't seen him um on the stage before you took him on, took on his case. Had you met him at all, or seen him anywhere?

George Carman QC26:06

No, I'd never met him. Of course I'd seen him on the television.

George Carman QC26:10

And he'll forgive me saying I wasn't particularly attracted at that time to his television performance.

George Carman QC26:15

I become a very late and enthusiastic convert to his great professional skills.

Presenter26:21

Did did you like him as a man?

George Carman QC26:23

I don't think anybody who got to know Ken Dodd well could dislike him, and indeed anybody who got to know Ken Dodd well couldn't help but like him.

Presenter26:33

We can't go over every bit of the case, fascinating uh as it was, but let me ask you, was it part of your strategy that we were talking about earlier on to uh make that video of his home in Knotty Ash with Ken doing the voiceover?

George Carman QC26:46

I thought it was important that the jury understood how he lived.

George Carman QC26:50

uh where he'd been brought up

George Carman QC26:53

and the ramshackle nature of his existence.

George Carman QC26:57

personally, and the best way of conveying it was by video.

Presenter27:01

So you'd been there and seen that?

George Carman QC27:03

I had indeed.

Presenter27:04

And you thought they should see it too.

George Carman QC27:05

I thought it was important for the jury to understand him.

Presenter27:08

It was also said that in court the two of you made rather a a good double act, that there were kind of ad lib one liners flying back and forth.

George Carman QC27:16

Well, I don't know whether that's true. If so, he was the professional and I was the amateur stooge. But uh

Presenter27:23

So it wasn't rehearsed.

George Carman QC27:23

Yeah. Uh there was certainly no rehearsal.

Presenter27:26

But rumour has it that you've been known to rehearse some lines in the Garrick Club.

George Carman QC27:32

Oh dear, some of my secrets are emerging. Well, there was one occasion when my

George Carman QC27:36

A good friend Robin Day was kind enough to tell me I'd have problems cross examining Arthur Scargill.

George Carman QC27:42

Because if I asked him a question, he'd uh consume the rest of the time by the answer and avoid the question. So we did have a kind of impromptu dress rehearsal over dinner, uh with Robin playing Arthur Scargill, exercising his uh undoubted distinguished skills, which warned me in advance uh the way in which uh mr Scargill might answer the questions. And I suppose that was some help when I had the task of cross-examining Arthur Scargill.

Presenter28:11

What happened when you cross examined him?

George Carman QC28:13

Well, he's a intelligent and a kind man with a great sense of humour, and uh although he initially avoided the questions a number of times, he did come to heel in the end.

Presenter28:23

What did you say to him? This is not a television studio. You've got to answer.

George Carman QC28:27

Something on those lines. I reminded him that we'd much more time in court than you had on television, and if he didn't answer the question I'd repeat it, and the message sank through, and he started to answer the question.

Presenter28:41

What you have to have, though, surely, beyond um that kind of professionalism, you have to have conviction, you have to have passion, don't you, to be successful?

George Carman QC28:51

You've certainly got to have commitment. I don't know how many of my colleagues would admit to passion.

George Carman QC28:58

But I think you have to have a passionate commitment, if I may so describe it.

Presenter29:03

But at the end of the day, underneath it all, from what you said so far, you remain professionally detached.

George Carman QC29:09

You have to be professionally detached, otherwise you will fail in your task.

Presenter29:14

So it's all an act.

George Carman QC29:15

Yeah.

George Carman QC29:16

It may appear to the outsider to be an act.

George Carman QC29:19

It's much different from that. It is a close professional commitment to the best possible presentation of what someone else wants to convey.

Presenter29:30

Shall we have your seventh record?

George Carman QC29:33

If I were to be stranded on a desert island,

George Carman QC29:38

I would lose uh

George Carman QC29:40

perhaps above all the company of my own dear son Dominic,

George Carman QC29:44

who has been and is very close to me.

George Carman QC29:47

and I have very happy memories of when he was a little boy.

George Carman QC29:51

and we used to have a few parties for friends, and he and I used to do a double act of singing a Beatles' number when I'm sixty four.

Speaker 430:05

When I get old, I'll losing my head many years from now.

Speaker 430:12

Will he still be sending me Valentine, Birthday greetings, bottle of wine, If I'd be out till quarter to three?

Speaker 430:23

Would you lock the door?

Speaker 430:26

Will you still need me? Will you still feed me? When I'm sixty?

Presenter30:32

The Beatles and When I'm Sixty Four and Memories of Your Double Act with your son Dominic. How old is he now?

George Carman QC30:38

Dominic is now twenty eight.

Presenter30:40

Is he is he one of your greatest friends, would you say?

George Carman QC30:44

I think I could say without hesitation, my closest male friend.

Presenter30:49

Is it with him then that you would relax? How do you wind down?

George Carman QC30:54

Well, I enjoy the theatre, I enjoy walking, I enjoy eating in restaurants, and I like the company of friends.

Presenter31:02

But would you go as far as to say that uh you live for your work?

George Carman QC31:07

I am afraid others have said it of me.

George Carman QC31:09

Uh I'm sure it's been true at periods in one's life when one's had to.

George Carman QC31:14

work very hard, that the work has come first and other things have suffered.

George Carman QC31:19

But one mustn't complain about that. That's the fate of uh many people in many professions.

Presenter31:25

You once said, and I I hope this is accurate um I think barristers make bad husbands. Do you say that for any other reason than that you're twice divorced, or is there a greater truth there, do you think?

George Carman QC31:35

Oh, it's probably a justification on my part. But I'm sure my colleagues will forgive me if I say that's probably true.

Presenter31:44

Do you do you find bachelor domesticity a painful business?

George Carman QC31:48

Not necessarily the most agreeable.

Presenter31:51

Let's have your last record, shall we?

George Carman QC31:54

Well, I'm running out of choices and uh it it's all very hard.

George Carman QC32:00

There is a lady who uh

George Carman QC32:03

figures in my life.

George Carman QC32:06

and uh the music that she likes most and I associate it a great deal with uh

George Carman QC32:12

Romantic feelings in one's life

George Carman QC32:15

is Richard Edenzahl's Warsaw Concerto.

Presenter33:17

Mischer Dichte, playing part of Richard Adinsoll's Warsaw Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sir Neville Mariner. Very romantic, George Carmen.

George Carman QC33:27

Indeed?

Presenter33:30

I've felt a little as if I've had you in the witness box throughout this programme. Is that how you've approached it?

George Carman QC33:36

I found it an ordeal, of course, as I'm sure people do, but equally a great honour and pleasure, and I've enjoyed your company and your invitation very much.

Presenter33:46

What a very proper answer. It's a cruel business, I think, to to cast away somebody who confesses to liking good food and good wine and good company, and also who's equally partial to tobacco, I should say, the

Presenter33:58

The ashtray is full at this stage.

George Carman QC34:00

That's right.

Presenter34:01

Could you exist a day without it?

George Carman QC34:03

I should doubt it.

Presenter34:05

Is that then your luxury? Should you should you have tobacco, do you think?

George Carman QC34:08

Well no

George Carman QC34:10

I think as the luxury I would take uh a painting that I have of the Grand Canal at Venice.

George Carman QC34:17

and the sunset.

George Carman QC34:19

uh because again one would like to have something very beautiful

George Carman QC34:23

to look at.

Presenter34:24

Now which of the records that uh uh you've selected um would you play more than any others?

George Carman QC34:30

I think it would have to be Beethoven's violin concerto.

Presenter34:34

And what about your book? You have the Bible and you have the complete works of Shakespeare.

George Carman QC34:40

Well, I'd a very enthusiastic English master who made me read and learn.

George Carman QC34:45

And later I understood fully, I think.

George Carman QC34:49

uh the beautiful poems contained in Polgrave's Golden Treasury. So that is the childhood book

George Carman QC34:55

that I would take to my desert island,

Presenter34:58

George Carmen, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

George Carman QC35:02

Thank you very much, Sue.

Speaker 335:11

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.