Describing the decorum of a past National Conference. Book review of Lawyer Heal Thyself, a divorce lawyer with marital issues.

Law Society’s Gazette, October 1969

Another National Conference [Scarborough] by David BarrIt is not all work, praise be… (the) wise delegate will come prepared for every eventuality. Dinner jackets are worn so frequently a spare might well be included. Any lady wishing to avoid a reputation for monotony should bring evening wear of every colour and length. Then there are the conference suits (dark for the tax lectures, tweedy for the land law), the golf wear, the ten-pin bowling casuals, neat little twin-sets and pearls for the ladies’ coffee mornings, gay sweaters and slacks for the beach walks and cliff climbing… I shall be adding to the burdens of my car, or perhaps the trailer I shall be towing behind it, the waders, rods, reels and flies that are needed for catching salmon.

Law Society’s Gazette, October 1959

Lawyer Heal Thyself by Bill Mortlock [book review]Not all solicitors quarrel with their wives and not all solicitors specialise in divorce, but some apparently do both. ‘Bill Mortlock’ (the pseudonym under which the author writes) is one of them…

He touches on what must have puzzled many solicitors – their ability to help other people straighten out their lives but their inability to be equally clear-headed about their own. So long as Bill Mortlock continues to generalise, he is very good indeed, but when he begins to develop his personal crisis, he loses the realism of his early chapters.

He quite suddenly discloses that he is in full possession of a very accommodating mistress. She is an absolute paragon of a mistress, such a woman as never really existed. She is always on tap, never offended at being kept waiting or having appointments cancelled, she lets him have a little sleep afterwards and gives him barley sugar to buck him up on the way home. There is some very technical sexology which will amuse the younger readers.