Rather His Own Man – Reliable Memoirs (2018) is a sequel to Geoffrey Robertson’s memoir, The Justice Game. The Australian is a human rights barrister and host of the television program Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals.
Robertson (1946-) begins in Australia with his heritage and lineage, and his early life and influences. Bad acne led him to books, not girls, and a ‘life-long aversion to censorship’ (when William Shakespeare’s 1610 play, The Tempest, and DH Lawrence’s 1928 novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, were censored from his school curriculum).
This led to a degree in law. And his law studies led to his involvement in 1964, and the 1971 trial of the Australian editors of the magazine Oz in a censorship case – the longest obscenity trial in British legal history. Robertson said, ‘The Lady Chatterley trial in 1960 won freedom for great literature and the Oz appeal in 1971 won freedom for bad literature, or at least for writing and cartooning that were amateurish and provocative.’ This was his career path.
Robertson’s ties were initially to the British legal system due to a scholarship in England. He writes of his early court cases, practicing at the Old Bailey since 1974, the skill in cross-examination and of delivering a final defence speech: ‘I had reached a position from which I could fight the English vice of hypocricy: censorship, secrecy, police corruption, discrimination and so on … at the Old Bailey, a lone David could sometimes slay Goliath.’
The start of the book is slow, but picks up when he recounts his court cases. This is not done in dry legalese, but with a sense of humour and wit, as well as with a passion for justice – such as the time when the judge objected, not of Robertson’s use of a swear word, but of his pronounciation of dance – it shoud be ‘darnce’ and not the short-vowelled dance as in ‘ants.’
He tells of his passions for literature and theatre, as well as adding a famous name or two, his television programs, how he met his wife – Australian author Kathy Lette – and his children. In the latter chapters he writes about the defence of the underdogs and the voiceless, humanitarian causes, freedom of speech, and the civil and human rights of world citizens.
The title, Rather His Own Man, comes from Robertson's reputation for independence, often working pro bono, and waging war on greed. This is a wonderful memoir with humour and sage advice: ‘Independence is worth it, for all the loneliness and lack of resources.’
MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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