Arthur Leolin Price CBE QC 11 May 1924 to 24 March 2013 ----When Arthur Price turned up at Keble College just after the Second World War, he decided that there were too many Arthurs at Oxford and so decided to use his middle name – Leolin or Leo for short. So it was that Dad became Leo Price. Born in Talybont-on-Usk in May 1924, Dad was the third son of Evan and Ceridwen Price. They were primary school teachers at a time when that profession was both well respected and well regarded. They went on to have 5 children – 4 boys and a girl. They obviously did something right as two of their children became silks, one a dentist and two doctors. But at the same time, the mischief in Dad remained. On one occasion, after they moved to Hawkhurst in Kent, Ceridwen received a bill from the village shop that included dog biscuits. They didn’t have a dog. Apparently, Dad and his brothers had rather liked the taste and they had persuaded their little sister, Margaret, to distract the shop’s owner while he pinched some to eat. This hadn’t happened once, but enough times for a bill to be needed. Despite this, Dad went to the Judd School in Tonbridge where he did rather well – winning a state scholarship to Oxford to read History. Before going up, he joined the Army – and was sent to General Rowallan in Scotland for some toughening up. Recently he told us that he was doing what I would have described as an escape and evasion exercise in the Highlands and that during that exercise he had decided that, rather than walk around one particular loch, he would commandeer a ferry to get across – so he did. At gun point. Goodness knows what would have happened had he been caught – he told us that the gun wasn’t loaded, but I’m not sure a court martial would have cared about that. Anyway, he wasn’t caught, was commissioned and was sent to India. There Dad learned Urdu – and became sufficiently proficient that he took the translators exams – and in later years, with his strong Oxford accent, he would try his Urdu on any of my friends who came from – or even looked as if they came from – India. It didn’t matter that many of them didn’t understand a word – he enjoyed remembering and trying it out again. Dad was on a train to fight the Japanese when, luckily for us, he was called back to India – to take up a post as Adjutant of the India Mounted Artillery Centre at Umbala in the Punjab. There, he served his time until demob in 1946. Rather than read History, he read law at Keble. Gaining a first, he decided to come to the Bar. He applied for a Scholarship – but didn’t get one. He claimed this was 1
because he answered the question wrongly. What question? He told us that he was congratulated on winning a first, on winning a blue for Rugby, on being elected treasurer of the Oxford Union and that he’d acted in plays, then he was asked whether he would prefer to be Lord Chancellor or Prime Minister – and without hesitation, he answered, ‘Prime Minister’ and that, he claimed afterwards, was the wrong answer. He passed his exams that summer and was called to the Bar in 1949. He did a pupillage in Common Law Chambers and then in Chancery Chambers. In 1950, he was diagnosed with TB and spent a year or so in hospital – the treatment then being done crushed a nerve to stop the spread of the disease from the infected part of the lung. Recovering, he returned to practice and did rather well. He took on cases that noone else would touch – he wrote opinions overnight – drafted pleadings over supper – and always responded quickly. His practice grew and he became well known for his courtesy and kindness. Someone recently told me that he was courtly – but I have to tell you that as a child I was always embarrassed by the hand kissing! In the Middle Temple, he was chairman of the Hall Committee for a number of years. He taught as a visiting don through what he described as the lean years of early practice. Taking on the manner of working that survived until he retired last summer – teaching at 8 in the morning or 8 at night – leaving him time to do his work in between. His energy and drive was astonishing. He would arrive in Chambers before anyone else and leave long after everyone else. He would travel to Wales in the middle of the night – although I often pitied anyone else who happened to be on the A40 when he was doing so. He worked so hard that once Mum wrote to the Times to ask them to stop printing his letters so that sometimes he might get home in time for supper. In 1968 he took silk. He told me recently that he had applied 6 times. He had a bit of a barney with the civil servants over his status as a Deputy Judge – and his argument with the Establishment about Britain’s place in the world and the EEC and then the EU has become the stuff of legend. His interest in politics was obvious. He had been Chairman of Oxford University Conservatives and then a leading light in the Bow Group and a founding member of the Society of Conservative Lawyers. Regardless of this – he disagreed strongly with some of the things that the Conservative Party did when in power – yet even in the early 80’s he was still trying to become an MP. What may be less well known was his continuing involvement in education – he was a Governor of Christ’s College Brecon and had been a very long standing trustee of Great Ormond Street and the Institute of Child Health – he continued his 2
relationship with his old college and was a keen trainer at Middle Temple Advocacy – I think he held his last session last summer! Dad became involved with the Institute of Child Health through work. He was asked to assist the Great Ormond Street Charity to deal with some aspect of their trusts – and came up with a series of ideas that the Treasury and Revenue were very unhappy with, but which worked. One of these gave the Charity access to funds, but returned the capital with gains to the investors at the end of the investment period. He persuaded Labour ministers to change the law to grant to the Hospital the rights to Peter Pan in perpetuity by statute – telling them that no-one would be foolish enough to vote against sick children. Dad loved to tell stories. He once said that it wasn’t he that breached his client’s confidentiality, it was the people he told his stories to! I was never sure just how much the stories were embellished – but they always entertained. Dad was very kind – even when teasing others, something that he had a lifetime to develop, he would have a twinkle in his eye and ensure that he didn’t go too far. His teasing was used to considerable effect in court – and he developed lifelong friendships with many of our most senior Judges. When one of my cousins was about 6, she became very attached to our grandmother’s dog, Mr Chips. Mr Chips had a tendency to chase sheep and after one incident it was decided to put him down. Dad and her parents decided not to tell Sarah that the dog was dead, rather that he had been sent somewhere else. For many years, Mr Chips would send Sarah a telegram on her birthday – 7 barks or Happy Christmas from Mr Chips in the Outer Hebrides – Dad always wanted people to have happy memories and thoughts. He could get frustrated – but even when angry with some poor person who wouldn’t speak clearly on the telephone, he would shout, but never swear – and often the conversation would end with his temper back under control. Such was others’ regard for him that after Lord Diplock died, Farrers or Withers (I forget which) telephoned him to discuss Lord Diplock’s will. Dad was named as executor. It came as a complete surprise, but he did it willingly. Whether you were his junior, his opponent, his client, his instructing solicitor, his friend, his acquaintance, you would always be treated with kindness – teased - if you were a woman your hand would be kissed – and always you would be entertained by stories of one sort or another. When the law reports started to be available electronically, one member of chambers typed ‘Leolin Price’ into the search function – and then printed up a very long list of cases that Dad had been involved in. At Chambers’ tea that afternoon, he handed the list to Dad and asked what it was – Dad looked at the first page, turned over and 3
read the second –looking a little despondent, he read the third and fourth page – before handing the papers back and saying in a slightly smaller voice than usual … ‘It’s a list of cases that I have lost.’ But that list of very important and unique cases, in a huge variety of fields, demonstrated a willingness to take on the difficult arguments that others would gloss over and argue them to the very best of his ability. His motto was ‘Fel-y-gallo’ which we translated to mean “as well as I can”. The number of decisions that are of significance is extraordinary – it is possible that no other barrister will have argued so many seminal cases – and his career lasted an extraordinary 63 years of which 44 years were in silk. Dad married Lindy Lewis in 1963. He had been Mum’s father’s godson and had been her chaperone on holiday some years before. He told us that when he asked Mum to marry him, she asked him what had taken him so long. In a typical tease, as they walked down the aisle after being married, he said to Mum, who laughed loudly, “It’s amazing what a bit of packaging can do for an old frump!” I am told that the older ladies at the wedding that heard this never forgave him – but Mum and Dad were very happily married. Every day, until she died, he would telephone her or leave her a message to say ‘Je t’aime a la folie!’ The stresses and strains of 4 children and eventually 9 grandchildren never reduced his sense of fun – he always let his inner child thrive and his relationship with children was always easy and friendly. Through his children and grandchildren, his life continues to have force – and, yes, there is an Arthur and a Leolin amongst them.
Eulogy delivered by Evan Price July 2013.
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