Names and places are disguised as a former South Lakeland lawyer turned district judge puts pen to paper to record his memoirs, writes Nadia Jefferson-Brown.

Richard Holloway, who is now retired, was on the Kendal scene for decades and dealt with everything from drink driving - before the breathalyser era - to abduction cases.

His tales of colourful characters and advocates' antics have already regaled family members, but when they also enthralled an avid audience during last year's Kendal Gathering, Mr Holloway said he felt inspired to capture some of his stories in print.

"A year ago I set off on a German cargo boat to Australia to visit my son in Perth. I can't fly so I went by boat. It took four weeks there and five back. I wrote most of my memoirs on the boat, and have written a few more since coming home," he said.

His manuscript, which is now almost complete, promises to throw light onto the legal world during the 1960s, and prove entertaining to boot.

Mr Holloway, son to Alice and Donald William Holloway, was brought up in Arnside and attended Heversham Grammar School before reading history and law at Cambridge University.

He started out in Kendal, then spent two years in Bristol before returning to the Auld Grey Town to become a litigation specialist partner with a local firm.

Litigation was considered "unfashionable" in those days, he said, because it was strenuous and did not offer the sort of money found in other areas of the legal field.

"Work came flooding in when people realised there was a solicitor who liked doing court work," he said. "After a few months the police decided to start giving me their prosecutions there was no Crown Prosecution Service in those days."

After securing victory in his first big case for the constabulary, a lot of his workload was taken up with cases brought before the magistrates' court by the police. The rest of his time was spent defending.

From 1967, for ten years, Mr Holloway was also a part-time clerk at Windermere and Ambleside magistrates' court an experience he valued.

"It gave you a perception of how the court was going to view a case and after that it made you a better advocate," he said.

But his career was not an easy option. Mr Holloway said it had been hard work as a specialist litigation solicitor because of the long hours and "emotional mileage".

Some of his work was involved in planning inquiries, particularly those surrounding conservation issues. "I did get quite emotionally embroiled in conservation cases because I believed in them so very much."

His first inquiry saw him helping to defeat a proposed Arnside link road following a three-week inquiry in the 1970s.

"It was supposed to be a dual carriageway and would have entirely wrecked the area," he said. "That's the one I look back on with most satisfaction. I was a local solicitor representing local groups and both the Government and Lancashire County Council had QCs and there were also barristers there for other people."

He was later appointed a district judge in Carlisle, which meant leaving his home just outside Sedbergh to move to a village further north. He also became a director of training for district judges and deputy district judges, and was president of the District Judges' Association.

Mr Holloway, who is married to Catherine, a health visitor, turned 65 last year and felt the time was right to retire.

"I felt a mixture of relief and sadness. The workload had become very oppressive - I was the only district judge at Carlisle - but I went on sitting as a deputy district judge for one year to keep my mind working."

Other than recording his experiences in ink, he now fills his days with pastimes such as carpentry, fishing, reading, listening to music and going to the opera.

January 2, 2003 15:00