For much of my early teens I harboured an ambition to be either a famous QC or a forensic pathologist. Ambitions inspired first by disccovering crime fiction & then by numerous biographies of people like Bernard Spilsbury or Marshall Hall
I quickly, though reluctantly, gave up the idea of the law. The prospects of finding anyone who would offer me a pupillage seemed slim, to put it mildly. But even if they did, there was no one who could pay my fees or support me until I actually started to earn money. It is one of the things that intrigues me about Cherie Blair, that only about a decade later she could seriously embark on a career in law. The world had changed a bit
Pathology seemed a real possibility however. Plenty of girls went to medical school. If I worked hard there was a chance I could pass the relevant exams & earn a place myself
There was still the problem that this would mean asking my parents to support me even beyond the 3 years needed for a single bachelor degree. I was lucky that they had instantly said yes when told by my teachers that I showed promise of being able to make it to university. Not all my class mates were so lucky. Boys as well as girls, though boys were not told that there was no point because theyd only get married anyway. I felt pretty confident that they would say yes, if that was what I really wanted, but not at all sure that I could feel comfortable about that kind of sacrifice
There was however one problem which proved insuperable when I really thought it through. I could contemplate, with equanimity the prospect of dissecting - in the interests of science & justice - a corpse. But medical training would rquire - for at least a brief period - having to apply a scalpel to living, albeit anaesthetised, flesh. And that I could not do
Postscript
When Eleanor Platt QC was called to the Bar 47 years ago there were some chambers that would not even contemplate taking on a woman. The members wives would not like it. She secured a place after a word in someones ear by her uncle, a non-practising barrister & a member of Grays Inn. He was in the golfing society & the Masons - The Times: Law 15 May 2007
