Blackburn takes centre stage

Blame Cokeyby Bill BlackburnLead Publishing, 12Neil Rose

Bill Blackburn, who until the mid-1990s was a prominent solicitor on the European stage, says these memoirs were the idea of his sons, who had often complained they knew little of his early life.

But to take them to the stage of self-publishing and publicising implies some justifiable pride in an eventful career and not a little egotism to go with it.

At a little more than 100 pages, Blame Cokey - from the name of his imaginary childhood friend - is not a hard read, and Mr Blackburn has a readable style.

But those who do not know him may have little interest in the personal areas of his life.

Another quibble is that while he trots through a career that saw him qualify in Liverpool, move to City firm Theodore Goddard's Paris office, and then spend many years working in-house at IBM in Paris, London and Brussels, he does not explain his motivations for many of the decisions he made in his life.

A bit more colour of what legal practice was like throughout his career might have been interesting too.

Yet one cannot be too hard on Blame Cokey.

The anecdotes and name-dropping flow freely and quickly: the time he was propositioned at lunch but forewent the opportunity because of a meeting, only to be told by his managing partner never to make such a decision again; now-dead Theodore Goddard partner Blanche Lucas, who had many lovers and looked around a meeting of the Solicitors' European Group, whispering to him, 'It is difficult for me to take those men seriously - I have seen most of them with their trousers around their ankles'; and the time he introduced the kilted Scottish law society president to the head of the Chinese Bar at a formal event, with the latter saying to the former that they had ethnic minorities in China too, some of whom also wore skirts.

The good news for Mr Blackburn is that through his involvement in the Law Society - he was on the council for 17 years - and various Anglo-French bodies, for which he received an OBE and was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in France, many people will indeed be interested in his life.

They will learn much of what happened to him, but still not that much about the man himself.

But Bill Blackburn - now battling cancer - seems to have enjoyed himself immensely, so good luck to him.