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The title of this book, and of this chapter in particular, may be somewhat puzzling to the reader, because, search as he may, he will no longer be able nowadays to locate any building answering the description No. 9 Ice House Street anywhere in town. A multi-storey block by that name had existed, however, for some considerable time until 1987 when it was pulled down for redevelopment. Since then it has been replaced by a taller new building renamed as No. 9 Queen’s Road Central even though it stands on the same old site, namely, at the corner of Ice House Street and Queen’s Road Central facing Battery Path to the south, and looking across Ice House Street at Edinburgh Tower to the west. The picture appearing on the cover of this book is of the former No. 9 Ice House Street as it was until 1987. Its main entrance used to be where nowadays entry into the underground garage of No. 9 Queen’s Road Central lies. There was in those days a flight of some five or six steps leading up to the landing on the ground floor where five lifts and a staircase provided access to the upper floors. The local Bar has come a long way these past decades. Today, its membership exceeds seven hundred whereas in the 1950s there were no more than a dozen of us. Counsel’s chambers these days seldom fail to inspire awe and respect in the visitor even before the interview begins. The magnificent outlay of the newly designed and erected buildings, the intricate corridors often enough leading to the spacious waiting room, conference room, and counsel’s working rooms, and the impressive number of well-trained working staff were what old-timers like me could only dream about fifty years ago when silks and junior barristers alike invariably and contentedly practised in single rooms of limited Room 404, No. 9 Ice House Street 3 3 30 TALES FROM NO. 9 ICE HOUSE STREET dimensions, when secretaries and receptionists were a luxury few could afford, and when computers, press-button telecom telephones, and other modern inventions were altogether unheard-of and unknown. In March 1953, when I moved into No. 9 Ice House Street, I earned the unique distinction of having the tiniest and humblest chambers not only among my fellow practitioners but also of all times. Room 404 had an area of less than a hundred square feet. For a while the standing joke was that when I was not in court, I would spend most of my time in a ladies’ washroom. For that was what Room 404 used to be before I converted it into my chambers. My good friend Ossie used to call it ‘a shambles’, although I was by no means ashamed. Instead, I was thankful to have a place at all, however modest, of my own to which I could proudly refer as my chambers. To commemorate the occasion, several solicitor friends of mine made me the thoughtful present of an enormous writing desk. Much as I appreciated the welcome gift, I must confess to being more than embarrassed by its size, because it literally took up one half of my room. As I sat behind this desk, I had my back against the only window facing the entrance. From this window I was consciously aware of what was going on in a spacious office occupied by a large number of people working in an opposite building lying across a narrow lane no more than twenty feet away. This was somewhat inconvenient and embarrassing, because air-conditioning was then far less common, and the window in my room had to be kept open all the time with the curtains pulled aside to provide the necessary ventilation. My clerk Ah Lo occupied an awkward seat near the doorway behind a folding desk which he would regularly have to vacate whenever any of my instructing solicitors brought along more than a single lay client for a conference. There simply was not enough room for everybody to be seated, and my poor clerk would invariably have to amuse himself in the corridor outside until the conference was over. The very thought of engaging a secretary never occurred to me in those days. Besides, even if I had a secretary, I would not know where to put her. Like my room, Ah Lo was pint-sized being not much more than five feet tall. Our...

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