Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Senior civil law judge and Master of the Rolls, known for his influential role in English law.
On the island
Eight records
Fantasia on GreensleevesFavourite
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult
It's mentioned even in Shakespeare Greensleeves, and I remember it because when we had a meeting of the Speakers of the Commonwealth of Westminster Hall, the Lord Chancellor came in to the tune of Greensleeves, a real English tune.
Royal Marines, Naval Home Command, Portsmouth
The band used to lead all of those us were going up in our packs and our rifles and everything like that, and used to play down marching to the station yard, the march Colonel Bogie. Then we got to the station gates we went all in on our way up and the trains to the line. The band went back. But we had Colonel Bogie as the last march in our ears before we left up for the line.
John Bunyan... He's always been sort of behind the family, if I must put it that way, with his Pilgrim's Progress, with his good language, short, easily understood sentences, and uh, if I may say so, his imagery, and his leading people in the right way... Pilgrim's Progress has been sort of a a family book.
I remember we took all the children. To see the king and I. When it was first produced at Drury Lane, Valerie Hobson was performing in it, and I remember how the children liked it and how we liked it, and she did it so awfully well.
Webster Booth with Fred Hartley's Quintet
To one when I was young. and really just about that time of that first war, and we repeated it later on my eightieth birthday the Bar Theatrical had a special collection of matters I was interested in, and we picked the roses of Piccadilly.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
Robert Shaw Chorale and the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra
I'd said, just a little while ago, How my navel brother had died... at his service. We had this old Methodist hymn... It was sung at Churchill's funeral. I was there in St. Paul's, as it was. at Lord Bambatten's, and at my own neighbour brothers and it always recalls me in a way er it almost exemplifies their character...
The Judge's Song (from Trial by Jury)
Leo Sheffield and the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
I would always like the caricature of the good judge, and a good judge too in trial by jury after the breach of promise action and of course the elderly ugly daughter... and it recalls the career of an old ba rather like my own at the sessions ancient Bailey appearing and then he becomes a judge.
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major (Land of Hope and Glory)
London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult
Which I love more than anyone, always because all the spirit love of England, land of hope and glory, mother of the free. That's what I always be believed in in my career, if you will see, for the freedom of the individual. In all my career I've tried to stand up for the freedom of the individual against the executive power or the power of any great authorities.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:38What are the rolls [in Master of the Rolls]?
Well, they're the old parchment rolls which many hundreds of years ago all the records were kept on, of the courts and the government. They were all on parchment and not in books like we have now, but rolled up. And these were the rolls of the realm, and the master of the rolls was in charge of them...
Presenter asks
4:05Did you have any particular ambition as a schoolboy?
Not particularly, except my mother says when I was a little boy I said I think I'm going to become a barrister. She remembers me saying that at about the age of ten, but I had no idea what a barrister was.
Presenter asks
5:49What happened when you came down [from Oxford]?
Oh, well, I taught at Winchester, taught mathematics for a year then, because I didn't want to study that all my life... So the law instead. Back to Oxford.
Presenter asks
8:15The keepsakes
The book
Francis Turner Palgrave
I think Palagraves Golden Treasury I've known it since I was a boy at school. We had to learn it there. And it really is the best, I think, the best selection of English poetry all over the centuries, representative. I know many of them by heart. And uh to record them, it brings all the qualities of England and words and the choice of words together. I'd like that to be able to dip into from time to time on this desert island.
Can you tell us about some of the judges before whom you appeared as a young barrister?
Ah, yes, there were great characters uh uh who could be uh rather frightening to a young man. mister Justice Swift, I remember, a very robust judge. Lord Justice Scrutton. There seemed to be greater robuster characters in those days than there. We are all too polite nowadays.
Presenter asks
10:25Am I right in saying that you've been a judge longer than any one in English legal history?
As far as I can discover, yes. I've looked back. But you see, now I've been over thirty six years a judge. I started quite young, as English judges go, and I've looked back. I haven't found anyone who's been a judge in England longer than I.
Presenter asks
21:47When do you find time to write?
It's almost a holiday task. You've got to remember I've got my library at home in the country. I've got a lovely garden to be by. And uh in the holidays I did think it was worth while well, I'm still going on... I have no time in the in the ordinary term time. I've only got to do it in times like that. In the vacation.
“I'm not a lonely sort of person. I'd rather have someone with me.”
“I got through it quickly at Oxford in I think eight months.”
“it's my view that we ought to keep the law in accordance with the needs of the times, and I always try to do what I think is just. Don't always succeed, you know, because sometimes I dissent. I always tell a little story, you know. When I was a judge of first instance, I say, sitting alone, I could and did do justice. But in the Court of Appeal of three I say the chances of doing justice are two to one against”
“I don't mind if I'm wrong, I don't mind saying I'm wrong and starting again... everyone goes wrong, and I'm wrong from time to time”