In Brief December 17

EULOGY
Eulogy for HHJ Elizabeth Rylands
The eulogy was given by HH Julian Hall,
a former Recorder of Oxford.
I would much rather not be here to-day. For the last two and a half
years we had all hoped that the prayers that were said, the candles
that were lit, the persistent treatment by the wonderful team of
doctors and her own spirit would pull Lizzie through, but it was not
to be. So we are here, of course, to mourn her death, but also to
celebrate her life which she lived to the full. I was very touched when
she asked me to speak to you, though we did not know the day; but
she had a very characteristic instruction which followed the request.”
Mind you, no blubbing!”
You will have known her answer to many different names. Lizza,
Elizabeth, Sis, Miss Rylands, Your Honour. I knew her as Lizzie and
I hope you will forgive me if I stick to that.
First the formalities. Her Honour Judge Margaret Elizabeth Rylands
was born in Cheshire into a large Catholic family. Her father chose
the family home to be within walking distance of the convent school
in Alderley Edge where she went with her sisters, and of which she
would later become a governor. Then she studied law at Bristol
University and was called to the Bar by The Middle Temple in 1973.
She joined our Chambers at 601 The Royal Exchange, Manchester
then headed by Andrew Gibb, and was a pupil of Richard Clegg .
The grant of her tenancy was a formality and she then practiced in
Manchester. She was made an Assistant Recorder in 1998 and a
Recorder in 2000. The Chambers dissolved in 2008 and she then
went to 18, St John Street. In December 2013 she was appointed to
the Circuit Bench and moved to the Western Circuit.
When she joined 601 she became one of a group of very clever
young barristers, all with different talents, but who became firm
friends as well as colleagues. The Bar was more relaxed in the 1970s.
Alongside their work they teased each other, creating bogus briefs
which purported to send them to nonexistent courts on fruitless
missions and they laughed with each other. All became, in the eyes
of the world, successful. One High Court judge, five Circuit Judges,
including Lizzie, and an eminent silk. He said to me, “Weren’t we
lucky to have such a start.” And, he added, “Lizzie was everybody’s
favorite.” She it was, when the Chambers folded 20 odd years later,
who refused to let the moment pass without a celebratory wake. The
dinner was memorable and I realized afterwards that I had known
everyone round the table for at least 30 years. Lizzie promoted such
a bond of friendship.
What about her legal career?
I have already mentioned her and her colleagues. All were jobbing
barristers practicing the common law as generalists. All would have
said that they did not get as much work as they would have liked and
Lizzie was no exception. But they persevered and the work came in
with Lizzie in time focusing on family work, becoming an active
member of the Family Law Bar Association and its Manchester
correspondent and photographer.
However, practicing the law in Manchester was not, by any means,
her only interest. At an early time when others were trying to
consolidate their burgeoning work, she went off to Brussels to do a
‘stage’ or pupillage in the commission. She retained that interest and
enjoyed being a member of the Bar European Group. Then there was
one Summer when she would arrive in Chambers on a Monday
morning having spent the weekend sailing back and forth across the
Irish Sea racing to Douglas and Dublin. I do not think the phrase
work life balance had been invented by then but she was conscious
of the importance of the latter.
Her final clerk told me that “she was a pleasure to clerk”. To me that
is shorthand for saying firstly that she was good at her job and also
that she was no prima donna, that she was prepared to help out other
members of Chambers and keep their solicitors happy too. That
would be entirely in character. She was on the Bench as a Recorder
for too long and as a full time Circuit Judge for too short a time. I
would say that the Lord Chancellor could justifiably have promoted
her many years earlier. To serve as a part time judge for 15 years is
too long.
Her time on the Western Circuit was very short, hardly a year. Her
brief there was to try family cases. They need compassion and
common sense as well as the intellectual capacity to deal with the
arcane complexities of Private International Law. She had all those
qualities. I have spoken to someone who appeared in front of her
often during that year. He said she was utterly courteous, very
thorough and completely fair. She had a phrase she often used, “Let’s
go down the line” ensuring that everyone had their say. He also said
that it was the only time he had known an extempore judgement,
starting at 2 and finishing at 6 to be interrupted by a tea break.
She moved to the West but she still loved the Northern Circuit. She
loved its characters. She followed peoples’ careers, their lives, their
misfortunes, their good luck and their appointments and yet I would
not count her as being gossipy. She just loved to know and she
passed on that knowledge usually with a sympathetic comment or a
hilarious laugh at life’s twists.
She was at one and the same time the most gregarious of people and
the most private. It was typified for me when someone else who knew
her from the legal world said to me that she did not know anything
about her brothers or sisters. They were as she put it, in a separate
file. I feel the same way, knowing her well in the world which we
shared but quite ignorant about many other facets of her life.
But this I do know. Her Catholic faith was extremely important to her.
She was regular attender at the Red Mass in Westminster Cathedral at
the start of the legal year and she was a committee member of the
Thomas More Society. She could not have ended her life at anywhere
more appropriate than at the Residencia at St. Peter’s, effectively her
home for the past 18 months. The quiet serenity of the community of
nuns was a balm to her and the chapel which plays a pivotal role
there and is physically at the centre of the building was all important.
At my last meeting with her she said that the daily Mass at 8.15 was
what got her out of bed however weary she felt. And weary and
battered she must have felt after such prolonged and invasive
treatment. Did she complain? Not to me, nor to anyone as far as I
have been able to find out. She was amazingly and unfashionably
stoical about it all. She was not one for letting it all hang out. I trawled
through her emails to me during this time and found these two
extracts which reveal her attitudes and which will probably ring
chords with you too. “All that is needed is a few prayers to St Jude
and I am feeling quite at peace about it all.” And then by contrast
“Off to the wig shop tomorrow. So I might get a grey bun and look
about 96 when I next see you.”
She herself was never grey nor dull, neither in what she did and said,
she was engaging and charming, nor in how she looked. With her
mass of dark hair and her striking clothes she gained attention, but
not in a ‘look at me’ sort of way. Her clothes, colourful and eye-
8 In Brief