Marilyn Stowe Blog

An address to the Durham Union Society

“Durham University is the only university in the world that can say its community owns, lives and works in a World Heritage Site”

– Durham University Vice Chancellor, Professor Chris Higgins.

I took this quote from an article about Durham University, which I had the great pleasure to visit yesterday. The World Heritage Site in question includes the magnificent castle, cathedral and the Palace Green, which is the large grassy space that links these two ancient structures. The many 17^th and 18^th century buildings that surround Palace Green are also part of the site. However the most remarkable and oldest of them all is the 15th century Exchequer House, which now forms part of the University’s Palace Green Library.

Inside Durham Cathedral lie the bodies of the three Saints. All were decapitated and by tradition no undergraduate must climb the Cathedral’s tower until graduation. As myth dictates, they will not graduate with a First Class degree if they do!

The word Durham originates from Old English and literally means “hill on an island”, where Dun translates to hill and Holmr to island. Durham itself was founded in 985 AD by a group of monks who were protecting the body of St Cuthbert, the Bishop of Lindisfarne. A castle was built around 100 years later and a cathedral followed twenty years after that. Since then, Durham has been the site of many battles throughout history, including the Battle of Durham and the Northern Earls Rebellion. The 17^th century writer Celia Fiennes described the city as follows:

“Durham city stands on a great hill. The cathedral and the castle (which is the bishops palace) with the college are built of stone and are encompassed with a wall full of battlements. There is a steep descent into the rest of the town where is the market place, which is a spacious place. There is a very fair town hall on stone pillars and a very large conduit (to bring water from the river to the townspeople)”.

She also remarked that it had “clean and pleasant buildings” and the overall picture is not dissimilar to how it struck me yesterday. This is a place that has changed remarkably little over the centuries.

After dinner at the hotel I walked up the tiny cobbled streets to Palace Green, carefully making my way (in high heels!) up to the impressive and historic debating chamber where I gave my address. Afterwards, the Durham Union Society President Nick Freeman, the Sponsorship Secretary Ben Dory and I made our way over to the North Bailey Club to continue our discussions over a well-earned drink.

I loved meeting the students; they were all bright and engaging. Just setting out in their careers, they don’t yet know what they will encounter but are clearly thinking very carefully about it just the same.

The talk I delivered to them ranged over a wide number of topics. It covered the legal profession as I encountered it in the days when there was practically no IT at all, right through to the present day. I also considered the varying career opportunities currently available in the field during these precarious economic times. I made it clear that from my perspective a career in litigation law is demanding, tough, relentless and unpredictable. It requires strength of character, flexibility, determination and drive. It is not a 9-5 day job and it is not a career for the faint-hearted.

I told the students that a career in law is also a career in business and must be treated as such, using examples of client care and financial acumen to demonstrate this. My address went on to consider the qualities that I believe make a successful lawyer and how I have treated the specific areas of discrimination I have come across in my own career. I spoke from a personal perspective about being a woman in the law; the constant juggling of running a growing law firm while raising a child, and properly meeting the competing demands of them both. I also considered the future of the professions, both solicitors and barristers. Then I turned to current family law and gave examples of its application for children and financial settlements, considering potential areas of law reform to family law, social justice, access to the law and political topics such as marriage and cohabitation. I gave them a lot of food for thought!

The range of questions that met me as a result was vast, and delivered in staccato bursts. The students actually kept me talking until 10.30pm. I have no doubt that their questions would have continued for much longer  if I had not needed to make the 70 mile journey home. There was time for a photo with some of them, but then sadly I had to leave.

I came away thinking what a great bunch of genuinely pleasant, very bright and thoughtful set of students they were – all of them surely destined for success. Nick and Ben made quite an impression as we had a good conversation over dinner, and I had the opportunity to listen to them and appreciate their very special intellectual qualities.

Of course I wondered about the impression I had made on the students. My address was completely off the cuff and I didn’t know whether I had hit the right note. My concern had arisen because my greatest critic, son and former law student Ben, had told me not to bore them rigid! So it was with great relief that the following email pinged onto my iPad upon my arrival home just before midnight:

Hi Marilyn,

I hope this gets to you, I just wanted to say thank you so very much for your address at Durham today, I really enjoyed it. I thought you really brought out the excitement and passion for law that I feel is rarely seen these days. I think you really are an inspiration and as you’re from Yorkshire like me it’s even better.

I do apologise if this isn’t the correct way to get in touch with you over things like this I just wasn’t sure how else I could.

Once again thank you so much for tonight, it was greatly appreciated by all of us present.

Kind regards,

Clare Smith.

I would like to say a big thank you to Clare, as well as Nick, Ben and all of the students who attended the address and looked after me so well at the drinks reception afterwards. I wish you all the very best of luck in your future careers.