Head-ing off rivals

It is the perennial problem one faces when brushing up the old CV.

At what point is something so far in the past that it is truly irrelevant? For Sarah Shemmings, a newly recruited partner at Reading firm Field Seymour Parkes (see page 10), the answer seems to be: Never.

The press release announcing the 44-year-old mum-of-one's appointment notes proudly that she is 'a former head girl of St Andrews School for Girls, Harrow'.

Sources at Field Seymour Parkes tell us this was what swung it for her against a field including a one-time prefect, a former lacrosse captain and a member of a primary school choir.