After working as a barristers’ clerk, man and boy, for over thirty years Stephen Ward wrote a collection of reminiscences of his working life to date. He describes some of the characters he’s met together with some of the more amusing and repeatable anecdotes from his life in the legal profession. During preparation of the manuscript he was contacted unexpectedly by Claire Long, the daughter of Frank Parsliffe who had written about his 50-year career as a barristers’ clerk from before the Second World War. As a young clerk in London, Stephen had worked with Frank Parsliffe (known as Tom) and it was agreed his unfinished memoirs would be combined with Stephen’s book. The result is a fascinating account of how the work of a barristers’ clerk has changed over the best part of a century.

Part One of the book is Stephen Ward’s story of his own career from the 1980s until the present day and the technological changes that have taken place during that time. Frank Parsliffe’s career spanned a very different time from the 1930s to the 1980s and his memoirs in Part Two reflect that. Frank also recounts his experiences as a young man in the wartime RAF. After four years away in the forces he returned to a very different chambers.