Nigel Giffin QC:
Everything James says about Eldred below is right.
Most people now in chambers will never have known Eldred, or only in his last days in practice or following retirement, when he was diminished by ill health. But prior to that he was an amazing force of nature: he seemed to know every case in the ICR and IRLR by heart; he was hard-working, both of himself and his juniors in chambers, to (and well beyond) a fault, but much loved by them - some of my happiest memories of early days in chambers are of going to lunch with him, in his big red Jag, to the old Blooms in Whitechapel, where he was treated like royalty. I also remember watching him argue Polkey in the chamber of the House of Lords, in full bottom wig etc, and by winning setting the law of unfair dismissal back on the correct path from which it had departed a decade earlier, so crushing his distinguished opponent by remorseless citation of authority that he eventually more or less capitulated and acknowledged that the appeal had to be allowed.
Attached is a photo of Eldred and Patrick from 1997.
Nigel Giffin QC
Nigel Giffin QC:
Everything James says about Eldred below is right.
Most people now in chambers will never have known Eldred, or only in his last days in practice or following retirement, when he was diminished by ill health. But prior to that he was an amazing force of nature: he seemed to know every case in the ICR and IRLR by heart; he was hard-working, both of himself and his juniors in chambers, to (and well beyond) a fault, but much loved by them - some of my happiest memories of early days in chambers are of going to lunch with him, in his big red Jag, to the old Blooms in Whitechapel, where he was treated like royalty. I also remember watching him argue Polkey in the chamber of the House of Lords, in full bottom wig etc, and by winning setting the law of unfair dismissal back on the correct path from which it had departed a decade earlier, so crushing his distinguished opponent by remorseless citation of authority that he eventually more or less capitulated and acknowledged that the appeal had to be allowed.
Attached is a photo of Eldred and Patrick from 1997.
Nigel Giffin QC
