PATRICK DEVLIN is best known for his legal rulings, championship of the jury system, and as the judge who acquitted Dr Bodkin Adams, the Eastbourne doctor who was accused of murdering his patients; but only Patrick's immediate family know much about his early life.
This autobiography, started four years before Patrick died (aged 86) in 1992, aimed to describe his first days at the Bar. It expanded to include:
A description of his childhood in Aberdeen, where his Irish architect father had married into the less wealthy part of the Crombie cloth-making family: some of his aunts and uncles read like characters out of The Forsyte Saga.
His education by the Jesuits at Stonyhurst where he first learnt the art of debating.
A detailed account of his time at Christ's College, Cambridge in the 1920s where he became President of the Union and his friends included Rab Butler, Michael Ramsey and Selwyn Lloyd. There he had the enormous fortune to be tutored by Arthur Goodhart.
