Ramblings: Bilsthorpe Bottoms

It may be that “The Law of Financial Derivatives” is an undiscovered “bundle of laughs” or that “Oil and Gas Contracts” would give a stand up lawyer material for a lifetime of comedy but if so why has Television not unearthed this trove of entertainment? No, it always seems to be the case that it is crime, petty or grand, to which the Media turns. Dear old Horace Rumpole’s appearances in the Chancery Division can be counted on the fingers of one finger. So also for litigation solicitors who have ventured beyond commercial litigation and personal injury into “a life of crime” it is usually the last which has provided the cases which remain longest in the memory.

So it is with me. It must be 50 years since the case of “the Bilsthorpe Bottoms” but it is still fresh in my memory. It began when, shortly after I was admitted, two youngish men presented themselves at reception. I had represented one of them a few months before in a minor motoring offence. I can remember nothing about that but he must have been satisfied with my efforts because he had returned – and this time it was rather more serious.

He and his friend came with summonses requiring their attendance at Southwell Magistrates on a charge of public nuisance or public indecency or something similar. Southwell Petty Sessional Division exists no longer. Like many rural Divisions and it has been subsumed into a much larger County Division, in Southwell’s case, Nottinghamshire. But in the 1970’s it was still independent and a character very much of its own – County gentry and the Church, and “old money” dominated the Bench and that privileged ethos permeated into the local police. It was almost Victorian in its outlook and business. Poaching, “lamping” hare coursing and the illegal gaming and petty crime connected to that, leavened the list. But apart from that the Division was genteel and “nice”. Except that, on the fringes of the Division there were a few “rough” mining villages, part of the then extensive Notts Coalfield. One of those village was Bilsthorpe, and the heart of Bilsthorpe was the “Bilsthorpe Miners Welfare”

My clients, as they became, had the following story: a few months previously they had set up a business as “Entertainment Agents” . As one of their first contracts the Management of the Bilsthorpe Miners Welfare asked them to “supply” two strippers to perform at the Welfare every Sunday Lunchtime for four coming Sundays, as a diversion for their mining customers from their weekly labours. My clients located two suitably qualified ladies and the contract was fulfilled to mutual and general satisfaction. On the fourth Sunday my clients attended the performance to collect the stripper’s remuneration and their commission. At the conclusion of the performance they were approached by a man, looking like a local in his “Sunday Best” , who introduced himself as Inspector Plod of the local constabulary. According to the evidence at the subsequent trial the following dialogue ensued:

Insp. Plod “ I have attended the last two performances by these women and both have been obscene and indecent”

Client A ( With a memorable “verbal” )“Obscene? – that was Art, pure Art”

Shortly after that exchange, the summonses I have referred to were served on my clients.

In due course we appeared before Southwell Magistrates. Given the patrician makeup of the Southwell Bench a conviction seemed inevitable. However, in the meantime someone at Nottingham C.P.S. had realised that they were going to have problems in securing convictions on the charges as drawn and withdrew them, and applied, successfully, to substitute a charge that my clients had “aided and abetted the keeping of a disorderly house” , the disorderly house being “Bilsthorpe Miners Welfare” . This turned out to be a big mistake because to get home on this charge they had to join in the “keepers of the disorderly house” , the Owners, and the employers of the Management who turned out to be “John Smiths (Tadcaster) Brewery” (John Smiths)

Now my clients had limited resources for representation but John Smiths had more firepower and in due course elected for trial in the Crown Court. More importantly they briefed one of the great trial advocates of the latter decades of the last century the incomparable Gilbert ( “Gilly” ) Gray. At the time of this case Gilly was a member of Leeds Chambers (local to Tadcaster) and had just attained Silk. To readers who are unlikely to have heard Gilly, in court in his pomp, it is impossible to convey the power of his advocacy and his formidable court presence . He is best described as a cross between Horace Rumpole and Edward Marshall – Hall (if such were possible) – a force of forensic nature. The best our clients resources could afford was an able, but very young, counsel I knew from University. Fortunately we had Gilly on our side.

Apart from Gilly’s advocacy the trial involved what was probably the most remarkable circumstance of my professional life. The trial took place in the Court Rooms then in the old Council Offices in Nottingham very close to Shakespeare Street. Somehow, no doubt in his researches for the trial(!) Gilly had discovered that in the “luncheon adjournment” on the second day a strip show was due to take place in a pub in Shakespeare Street. So when that time came he insisted that all members of the defence teams (clients of course excepted) went with him to see the show. The pub was heaving with customers. Frankly I can remember nothing of the show, but will never forget Gilly, in his court dress, wing collar and tabs, standing on the pub windowsill getting a view over the crowd, waving his wig furiously and shouting encouragement to the performers.

And I will always remember the opening of his closing address to the Jury as he turned on the rhetorical firepower for which he had been paid:

“Members of the Jury – this week the news has been full of tragic events around the world, wars in Indo China, earthquakes in South America, floods in India and starvation in Africa. And what has occupied all you here for the past three days? Wiggling Bottoms in Bilsthorpe. Bilsthorpe, Members of the Jury not even Frinton on Sea”.

Unsurprisingly John Smith’s (Tadcaster) Brewery and my clients were all acquitted.

John Calladine