I studied law and you were sent away
to go and work for the next tutorial,
with a long reading list culminating with
a weekly essay to write. Sport was a
massive part of my life there and that’s
how I made a lot of great friends. I had
the dubious distinction along with my
great friend who was my best man of
managing to get into the second eleven
at hockey and I managed to stay there
for three years without ever progressing,
although I did play a few games for the
blues team but the point is we just had
great fun, great fun.
Have you any standout stories from
university years? Did you have a
gap year or did you go straight on to
university?
I’m old enough to be from a time when
there was a separate entrance exam for
Oxbridge (for Oxford and Cambridge),
which you took after you’re A levels. So,
you stayed on a term at school. I didn’t
finish school until December and I had
to then take nine months off, which I did
and initially I went away travelling with
my family. We went out to Kenya where
we then had relations out there and I
stayed on a few weeks afterwards with
family who farm as tenants in the Masai
Mara, as tenants of the Masai tribe,
which was a bit bizarre. Then I went back
for the summer term at my old school my old prep school and taught.
Where did you go to secondary
school, college and university?
I went from my little prep school to
Marlborough where I carried on boarding.
It is a big public school and a) I found
the academic side reasonably easy
and didn’t struggle with that and, b)
I loved the sport and I really got into
hockey there as well. I played in the
first team at cricket and hockey and
I was introduced to hockey by a guy
called David Whitaker, who was then
the captain of Great Britain and he then
went on to coach Great Britain to bronze
and then gold at the Olympics. So, he
was enthusiastic. He’s the one who got
me into hockey.
I was already playing a lot of cricket and
I enjoyed my time there and it was a very
privileged time with all the facilities and
everything we had. After that, I went to
Oxford University to Christ Church where
I suddenly found myself in the big wide
world where you just have complete
freedom and there were no rigid,
compulsory lectures and basically you
had to study by yourself.
The RE teacher was the local vicar and
he was going off on a sabbatical. So,
I was thrown in to teach 120 people
scripture. I was brought up in a Church
of England background but I’m not a
particularly religious churchgoer but the
one tip he gave me was, “make sure
you’ve got lots of sweets.” And that
seemed to work as along with lots of
picture competitions - that was my way
of teaching them scripture.
That was great fun and some of the
younger staff liked to play a few tricks
on me. One day I do remember going
into breakfast and the headmaster came
up to me and said, “Simon, would you
mind removing your car from the gym?”
Somehow, they had got my old banger
of a car (after we’d been out to the pub)
and managed to get it into the gym. So,
I go to have a look and there’s my car
sitting in there getting in the way of the
PE lessons!
So, what made you want to study law?
When did your interest in that begin?
Well, I did a funny mix of A-levels. I did
maths and Latin and ancient history but
I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.
I was just chatting to careers adviser
and he suggested, “well, you like logical
things so try law”. So I thought okay!
I played in the school first teams for
cricket and hockey so I thought, well…
Christ Church is a big college, it will
have good college sport and a wonderful
sports ground and that’s why I applied
to Christ Church. My tutor, who, I think
is still alive, is a very eminent academic
property lawyer called Edward Burn. He
is mad about cricket and was a member
of the MCC so every time we had a
tutorial he and I, much to the annoyance
and boredom of my tutorial partner (who
was a very nice lady, but wasn’t very
interested in cricket), would pick the test
team for the next England test match. He
was an amazing man, incredibly bright
and he loved having a cross-section of
people amongst a year of students.
He wasn’t interested in trying to get
everybody a first, he wanted people to
have other interests. He would dine in
London with eminent law lords including
Lord Denning and discuss their ongoing
cases with them. It was an amazing
experience having him as a tutor.
I’m not sure that I have quite met his
expectations of me as a lawyer.
Bizarrely and coincidentally, my tutorial
partner from those days now lives near
Lewes! Her husband, who was also at
Christ Church, is now the Bishop of
Lewes. It’s a small world!
So, after you finished at university, did
you have to go on and do more exams
or did you go straight in to a job?
Well, I didn’t know what I wanted to
do. I didn’t want to go to London - lots
of people I knew, both lawyers and
non-lawyers were all looking for these
fancy jobs in London - whether it was
investment banking or going into law. My
best friend, who was also my best man
went straight to London is now a very
successful barrister there. I just didn’t
want to go there. I hated London. I’d
seen my brother, who went to university
there to do veterinary last one year
and he hated it and he fled back to be
a farmer. I’m a country person and we
had a very good family friend, who was
a land agent who did any land agency
work that my parents needed on the
farm and gave any advice they needed. I
chatted to him and I ended up going and
spending a bit of time working for him.
Then I went to the agricultural college
at Cirencester to do a diploma in estate
management, which should have been
a three-year course but because I was a
graduate they let me do it in two years.
I’m not sure what they do in the first year
and I don’t really feel I missed anything
v W'