'Victor Meldrew has done a lot for the role of pensioners,' believes Harriet Dawes, the Lovell White Durrant pensions partner who was made an OBE in the Queen's birthday honours list last month.The stroppy One Foot in the Grave character's failure to slump back into the deckchair of his twilight years reflects the growing influence of a grey power generation, fuelled by the cash provided through a welter of pension schemes.Of course, it is when things go wrong - Maxwell falling off his yacht, or insurers selling inappropriate private schemes - that pensions hit the headlines.Part of the problem, Harriet Dawes - a founder member of the Association of Pension Lawyers - argues, is that pensions simply are not sexy.

'By and large people don't like to think about pensions - it's totally hopeless trying to get people to concentrate on the subject.'This is because pensions are associated with growing old, giving up work, becoming useless.

So if someone else is going to do the thinking for them, they will let them go ahead,' she says.Added to that is the complexity factor: 'Occupat-ional pensions are very good for many people, but they don't suit everybody, and it is sensible to give people more choice.'But if we give people more choice about whether to stay in an occupational pension scheme or whether to move to a personal scheme, then they need to make decisions, and in order to make decisions they need information, and they are totally disinclined to get the information, and even if they do get the information they do not want to think about it!'It is clearly a struggle, but one which, Ms Dawes hopes, will be in part tackled by the recommendations of the Goode pension law review committee, and the subsequent White Paper from the Department of Social Security (see [1994] Gazette, 29 June, 8).'What the Goode committee and the White Paper h ave tried to do is to clarify the obligations of the all the participants in a pension scheme - the trustees, the employer, the advisers - and therefore what the members can expect of them.'Nevertheless, if we are to have choice in pension provision, something which she clearly supports, then there will always be complexity.'It would be lovely if we could have a set of principles along the lines of the Ten Commandments - you must not do this, that and the third thing.

The trouble is that where you have got choice and flexibility you must have alternatives, and where you have alternatives you get very complex legislation.'Now in her 51st year, Harriet Dawes is one of only 17 women partners among Lovell White Durrant's total of 144.

But she does not feel her sex has held her back.

'There are some extremely clever women and superb personalities working at all levels and more of them will come through,' she believes.Her recent gong came in recognition for her services to the pensions industry, notably her work with the Occupational Pensions Board - she is its deputy chairman and served a three-month, stop-gap stint as chairman at the end of last year.'I was very surprised and very honoured - it was totally out of the blue, and it never occurred to me that I could be in line for something like that,' she says of the OBE.When the buff envelope from 10 Downing Street hit the doormat, she thought her number had come up to munch the cucumber sarnies at a garden party.It fact it was from the Prime Minister's principal private secretary.

It said: 'The PM has it in mind to recommend your name to the Queen, but before he does so he would like to know whether you find the award acceptable.'The Lovells partner read PPE at Somerville, and first went into industry as a lobbyist with textiles giant Courtaulds.

After five years the opportunity came up to switch to the legal department, so she took the Bar exams, and spent a further seven years handling a range of commercial, conveyancing, insolvency and debt collection work.Ms Dawes made the decision to transfer to the other side of the legal profession while still with the company.

'I had qualified as a barrister but the work I was doing was effectively that of a solicitor.'Hearing from a friend in 1977 that Lovell White & King were looking to fill a post in its pensions department, she applied.'I came along for an interview, and I loved them.

I thought they were absolutely great - there was a real rapport,' Ms Dawes recalls.Within three years, and under the guiding hand of the longest serving member of the pensions team, Russell Strachan, she was made a partner.

In time, that early rapport also bore fruit in her personal life when she married the firm's joint managing partner, Michael Maunsell.The pensions department is run very much as a team, she says.

'We all have our separate strengths and we work on a collegiate basis - there isn't a leader, and that is one of our strengths.

If a request for a beauty parade comes in, we can decide who would be best from the team to send along, bearing in mind who the client is.'The group's success is reflected in it's high-profile workload, providing advice to the trustees of the pension schemes of the mine-workers and staff of British Coal, as well as those of British Rail, and on preparing these schemes for privatisation.