Cherie Blair on Dame Rose Heilbron
Great Lives
BBC
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 11 September 2018
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For Cherie Blair, leading barrister and QC, picking her great life was simple – her role model is Rose Heilbron, England's first woman judge.
When Cherie was growing up in Liverpool, Rose Heilbron was always the name that excited her grandmother the most. Rose was a barrister and when she was arguing a case before a jury in her home city, Cherie Blair's grandmother would follow her cases avidly, sometimes from the public gallery. Then she would come back and tell young Cherie all about what had gone on.
And so Heilbron became a great example of what a Liverpool girl could achieve in the law. And she had a remarkable career - first woman in silk, first to lead in a murder case, first woman treasurer of Gray's Inn.
Cherie is joined in the studio by Hilary Heilbron QC, daughter and author of the biography: 'Rose Heilbron, Legal Pioneer of the 20th century'; plus Dr John Tribe – senior lecturer in law from the University of Liverpool.
Presenter: Matthew Parris
Producer: Perminder Khatkar
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2018.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service. |
| 0:04.7 | Join me as I serve up personal conversations with my sensational guests. |
| 0:08.8 | Do a leap interviews, Tim Cook. |
| 0:11.2 | Technology doesn't want to be good or bad. |
| 0:15.0 | It's in the hands of the creator. |
| 0:16.7 | It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room. |
| 0:20.7 | If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes, you're doing the wrong thing. |
| 0:26.0 | Julie, at your service. |
| 0:28.0 | Listen to all episodes on BBC Sales. |
| 0:31.5 | This is the BBC. Today's Great Life was someone whose career was a list of firsts. |
| 0:39.0 | She was the first woman to win a scholarship to the famous London Inn of Court, Graz Inn, the first to become a judge, |
| 0:46.5 | the first to lead in a murder case, and the first woman to sit at the old Bailey to list just |
| 0:51.6 | a few of her achievements. |
| 0:53.4 | Dame Rose Heilbron was one of the outstanding defense barristers of either gender of the post-war period, |
| 1:00.0 | who became a celebrity and a household name not only in her home city of Liverpool but nationwide. |
| 1:06.5 | And nominating today's great life is a fellow Liverpoolian and barrister, Sherry Blair, |
| 1:11.8 | CBE QC. |
| 1:13.8 | Shari, was Rose Heilbron a familiar name in your house when you were growing up? |
| 1:18.8 | Absolutely. |
| 1:20.1 | My grandmother, and I was brought up by my grandmother and my mother my grandmother was a huge Rose fan. |
| 1:26.0 | In those days when I was little she used to sometimes go and see Rose Halbroning Court because she always used to say it was worth hearing |
| 1:36.1 | Rose speak and the way she behaved in court. |
... |
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