Solicitors who qualified in the 1920s and 1930s recall a golden age where they were held in the highest regard.

Yet with trainees paying for the privilege of doing articles at law firms and few women joining the profession, were they really the good old days? Rachel Rothwell investigates

'I never wanted to be a lawyer,' confesses Robert Urquhart, 86-year-old former partner at Simpson Palmer & Winder in Surrey.

'I really wanted to be a doctor, but then at least I know my advice has never killed anyone.'

Mr Urquhart is one of an ever-decreasing pool of lawyers who qualified in the 1920s and 1930s and can still remember the good old days - before the Second World War, before every six minutes of time had to be charged, before e-mails demanded an instant response, before the client had an opinion, and before Sir David Clementi started peering over shoulders and making notes on his clipboard.

Recently, one of the first women to qualify at the bar died, aged 98.

Margaret Protheroe, known as Peggy, was called to the bar in 1932, and is believed to have been one of only four qualified women barristers at the time.

Mr Urquhart qualified in 1939 and his legal career lasted more than 50 years.

Still active as a director of the Solicitors Benevolent Association (SBA), he spent most of his working life as a litigator and played a key role in creating the law that first introduced compulsory third-party motor insurance in the UK.

He began his training in 1934, when budding solicitors had to be either rich or well connected - not to mention male - to stand any chance of entering the profession, he recalls.

Trainees paid a fee of 500 for the privilege of doing articles at a firm.

They received no salary and were not allowed to take any other paid employment - putting the elitist career well out of reach for the masses.

But for those like Mr Urquhart who did manage to secure a foothold on the professional ladder, the on-the-job training and daily partner contact was invaluable, he says - a fact that should not be lost on City firms today.

He explains: 'The training I received was excellent.

The senior partner had a false eye, and they used to say that was the only one that smiled.

But he was first class.

I sat in the same room as him, turned the pages over for him and got the books - and woe betide me if I got the wrong ones.

I really learnt how it all worked, and I spent a lot of time in the courtroom.'

He adds: 'In those days it was not so much knowing the law as knowing how to find it.'

For those who did not have the money to stump up for articles, the only other route was through family connections.

Ms Protheroe's brother, Arthur Protheroe, a 99-year-old former criminal solicitor from Blackheath in London who qualified in the late 1920s, still recalls how he came to embark on the honourable career.

Not that he had any choice in the matter.

He explains: 'I was desperate to be in the merchant navy like my uncle.

One day I went out with my father, a police superintendent, to sign up with some shipping companies.

On the way, we passed a building on Cannon Street with a big brass sign, "Golding Hargrove & Golding".

'Suddenly my father exclaimed: "My golly, I haven't seen Charlie Golding for a long time!" and in we went up the stone steps.

It was a solicitors' firm, of course, and when Mr Golding heard my plans, he told my father gravely: "There's no future in the sea, John." There was a long, long pause.

Then he looked up and said: "John - I'll take your boy under articles without a premium." My father turned to me and said: "You'd like to be a solicitor wouldn't you, Arthur?" And that was the end of my seafaring plans.'

Mr Protheroe went on to become a highly successful criminal solicitor, affectionately dubbed 'the whelper' by local police because he was so often 'pleading' on behalf of clients.

He handled many high-profile murders, and acted for the boyfriend of Ruth Ellis, who was later alleged to have given her the gun with which she shot racing driver David Blakely.

She was the last woman to be hanged in the UK.

A keen participant in amateur dramatics, Mr Protheroe also enjoyed treading the courtroom boards, where - then as now - a touch of humour did not go amiss.

He recalls a run-in with one particularly severe lady magistrate, Cybill Campbell.

'There was a lot of work defending charges of indecent exposure back then,' he says, 'and some of my explanations in defence of my clients may have seemed a little unlikely.

I remember one time, my client was charged with flashing at a passer-by from his window.

My defence was that what the passer-by had actually seen was a large cactus on the window ledge - which made the magistrate furious.

But years later I bought her a cactus as a retirement present and she laughed.'

Courtroom humour was by no means restricted to solicitors - judges too enjoyed the occasional quip.

Mr Urquhart recalls the wit of a judge named Swift.

He says: 'In those days, senior counsel used to take on more cases than they could manage, which annoyed the judges quite a bit.

There was one case where the plaintiff claimed to have double vision.

When the counsel had finished, his clerk started pulling at his gown.

The judge asked the plaintiff: "Can you see two clocks on the wall there instead of one?" "Yes sir," he replied.

"And can you see two of me?" He nodded.

"Then can you see two of your defence counsel over there? Well good - because it looks like one of them is needed in the other court."'

If there were more jokes than there are in courtrooms today, then it may have had something to do with the good lunches enjoyed by some legal professionals.

Mr Urquhart recalls that you could not approach a Master - now Registrar - before 11.30am because he would still be reading The Times.

After lunch he would be asleep, and by 3.30pm he already would be on his way home.

As for women in the legal profession, there were few to speak of; Ms Protheroe was very much the exception that proved the rule.

But as many solicitors took offence at the idea of a woman barrister, her referrals came almost entirely from her brother and she soon transferred, joining him as a partner in his solicitor's practice - until a man in the fur trade enticed her away from the law altogether.

Maurice Spector is a 90-year-old former partner at Chamberlain Kean & Co in Norfolk.

His legal career spanned from qualification in 1936 to retirement in 1972, and he is now a director of the SBA.

He recalls how women were not even permitted as guests at the Law Society.

He says: 'I remember sitting in Chancery Lane with a woman client in 1939, and the waiter came over and asked her if she was a solicitor.

When she said no, he told her she would have to leave - to my embarrassment.

'Women were still quite rare as solicitors then, and I only knew of one woman student when I was doing my articles.'

The Law Society set out strict rules governing the working lives of solicitors in those days.

A letter to a client had to be charged at three shillings and sixpence, while telephone calls were three shillings and fourpence each.

A short attendance cost a half-crown, and a long one five shillings.

Not quite the 600 per hour rates seen on some client bills today.

'You would even be reprimanded if the brass plate outside your office was half an inch too big,' muses Mr Spector.

Mr Protheroe recalls the rigid rules on advertising, having fallen foul of them himself.

After appearing in an amateur theatre production, a newspaper review mentioned that he was a solicitor.

'I was summoned to Chancery Lane and received a rap over the knuckles,' he says.

'They told me I had been advertising.'

The tools of the trade were rather different in those days - forget digital dictation, you were lucky to have a secretary with a typewriter.

Mr Protheroe used to write leases by hand on parchment in copperplate writing, and letters were typed in copying ink then pressed with a moist cloth to make a duplicate.

Mr Urquhart remembers the office he joined when he returned from the war in 1946: 'I sat down at my desk, and in the drawer there were three items,' he says.

'A set of duck's feathers for writing on parchment, a cigar cutter - cigars could be smoked at the desk - and a mahogany and brass hearing trumpet.'

The only thing missing was some glass for the windows.

'It was a good-sized room with three large windows, and the glass had been blown out during the air raids,' he continues.

'Glass for offices was a low priority and the only protection was provided by sheets of muslin.

There was only a coal-fire, with coal strictly rationed, and it was almost fatal to go out for lunch as someone in the building would sneak in and pinch the afternoon ration.

I managed to survive because a friend who had been in the Air Force had two fur-lined flying jackets and lent one to me.'

Mr Spector says the public's perception of solicitors is one of the biggest changes he has seen over the years.

Today's press may portray the profession as greedy and unscrupu-lous, but the image of the 1920s and 1930s solicitor was that of a knowledgeable man of integrity.

He says: 'Solicitors were considered with great respect, and what they said carried weight.

Clients may have complained or disagreed, but they did so respectfully.'

And if solicitors held a high position in society, then so did barristers.

'The bar looked down on solicitors,' says Mr Spector, 'even though they were fed by them.' Perhaps things have not changed all that much after all.