Tales from No.9 Ice House Street

2. The Start of a New Life

If t h e y e a r 1 9 5 1 – 2 w a s m e m o r a b l e f o r m e a s f i r s t Chinese Crown Counsel, 1953 was no less unforgettable as the year in which I began my career proper as a private practitioner at the then tiny hitherto little known local Bar. I remember feeling almost like venturing into No-Man’s-Land. The seniority of a barrister dates from the day he is admitted to practise in the courts of the place and not from the day he actually commences practice. Upon my return to Hong Kong from England, I was called to the local Bar in the month of July 1950 before I went off to spend a year in Kuala Lumpur. Oswald Cheung did not come home from England until 1951 when he too was admitted to practise in Hong Kong. Thus I could proudly claim to be senior to him by one year in the Bar list, at least until he took silk in 1961 and became the first ever Chinese Queen’s Counsel in Hong Kong, which naturally projected him above all members of the local junior Bar in seniority. On the latter occasion, Leo D’Almada é Castro QC, as chairman of the Bar Association, made a beautiful speech moving the court to admit Oswald Cheung as Queen’s Counsel. ‘China,’ he said, ‘is known to have produced some of the finest silk in the world. As from today, we shall have the privilege of witnessing the excellence of Chinese silk in our courts.’ Until 1960, there were only four Queen’s Counsel practising in Hong Kong, namely, Leo D’Almada é Castro, John McNeil, Charles Loseby and Brook Bernacchi. Today, the local Bar is headed by sixty silks, of whom twenty-nine are Chinese. In 1953, Ossie’s chambers in the old Alexandra House consisted of a The Start of a New Life 2 2 24 TALES FROM NO. 9 ICE HOUSE STREET single room of some three hundred to four hundred square feet on one of the top floors, which had to accommodate not only Ossie and his impressive law library but also his secretary and a clerk-cum-messenger, each of whom occupied a separate desk somewhat smaller than that of Oswald’s. Mrs Graham, his secretary, was a charming, sociable and very efficient individual whom I soon got to know well. Ah Leung, his clerk, was an amicable young man of about twenty; he was utterly devoted to but equally frightened of his employer. It was well-known that whenever Ossie raised his voice, Ah Leung would totally forget whether he was coming or going. I had my own desk and telephone set up in the only remaining unoccupied corner of Ossie’s chambers. My desk was not much bigger than that of Ah Leung’s. Because of the requirement for professional privacy, Ossie and I had a tacit understanding that whenever he held conference in chambers, I would absent myself and work in the Supreme Court Library. In those days, the Supreme Court was housed in the building in which the Legislative Council of the SAR government nowadays conducts its meetings. Furthermore, I myself would hold conference in chambers only when Ossie was engaged in court. Otherwise, I would either meet my instructing solicitors over a cup of coffee in town or in the Supreme Court Library if circumstances permitted. Although this was by no means an ideal arrangement, it worked out satisfactorily enough because during the two odd months when I took advantage of Ossie’s kindness and generosity to share his chambers, both he and I were more often in court than in chambers. Our conferences rarely took place at the same time and never caused either of us any embarrassment. I was more than happy to be Ossie’s guest and never regretted it. My private practice began auspiciously, thanks to Arthur Lui of Messrs Lo & Lo (Solicitors). In the first week of January 1953, Arthur instructed me to appear in a magistrate’s court as defence counsel for a pawnbroker charged with receiving stolen goods. The subject-matter of the charge was a diamond ring seized from the pawnshop by the police. Several weeks before this diamond ring was pawned, there had been an armed robbery in town when several masked men made away with a large number of diamond and jade...