Judges don’t always have it their own way, writes John Moore, of Dixon & Templeton in Hampshire. When Moore started articles in 1959, he recalls sitting in a Court of Quarter Sessions presided over by a terrifying recorder whose demeanour suggested the possibility of suffering ‘a recurring and somewhat unpleasant condition of the nether regions, especially painful when seated’.

This demeanour manifested itself when a witness in a militarily-crested blazer showed some difficulty negotiating the swing doors and making his way past the dock and up the steps of the witness box. ‘Come on, come on,’ the recorder boomed in judicial tones, ‘we haven’t got all day – you’ve got legs, haven’t you?’ ‘No, sir,’ the witness replied, ‘I lost them at Arnhem.’

The recorder wasn’t quite so grumpy after that, Moore recalls.