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I remember when I became an articled clerk in the early 70s.I worked for a small two partner firm on the south coast and before you all switch off, no it wasn´t Eastbourne. One partner did conveyancing, the other all forms of litigation. They arrived at 9am when the office opened and they were off punctually at 5pm when it closed. They worked hard when they were there but no evenings or weekends for them. Wednesday lunchtimes they would retire to the local yacht club and invariably I would receive a telephone call about 4.30 with a request to bring the post there and I would sit and enjoy a brandy and a cigar with them while it was signed. Well, they can´t have been earning much I can hear you say but they once showed me the accounts - in today´s money about 100 grand a year each. So when us old boys write about the "good old days" that is what we mean. During my career obviously stress increased for all of the reasons ventilated here and money got scarcer. I recall oftimes interviewing tradesmen about their incomes and they would diffidently give me figures (I assume genuine) and say things like "I know it´s not much by your standards" while I was sitting wondering how I was going to pay the mortgage that month.
Certainly I also noticed a marked diminution in the standards brought into the profession by the newly qualified who, not to put to fine a point on it, seemed barely educated. It was also the case "in my day" that whilst we weren´t one big happy family, members of the profession treated each other with natural courtesy and respect. If your opponent was near being out of time with a defence, you quietly gave him/her a call. A few years ago I asked a newly retired senior partner of a large London firm what he thought of the modern profession - " they´re like a pack of ravening wolves" he said. What saddens me in my now semi-dotage is that my generation has largely failed those who are now entering the profession (even if it isn´t so regarded by the public or government anymore, we are all still professional men and women) by allowing it to become the shambles it currently is. Could we have done something about it? I think so.