Sometimes in most lifetimes we experience strange moments.  Today was one of those moments.  I had a blast from the past, a haunting recurrence of a former life, but in a most pleasing way.

In a previous life I was a solicitor. Not just any old legal hack, but a half decent criminal defence hack. I pleaded my clients case up and down the country, from Tyneside all the way down to the south coast. In fact wherever my client needed me I was there.  Most of my work was done in the haunts of East Anglia and it was here I did most of my work. One off clients and regulars.

One of my semi-regulars I looked after over a period of about 5 years before even I could not keep the poor souls from prison. In the crown court the Judge handed down a custodial sentence for a nasty event.  That was about 10 years ago now. It was the last I ever saw of him.

Just over a year ago, I retired from practice and left that life behind me. You often wonder to yourself if you ever made any difference. Did your words and the sentence of the courts ever change their lives, put them on the straight and narrow, or are you just marking time?  Some clients are one offs for sure, others are hardened criminals. For the one offs, you never see them again. A small misfortune in their lives never to be repeated. The hardened ones it’s a roundabout of prison, home, more crime and more time. 

There have been a few rogues that have begun their lives of crime and spend a few years on the roundabout but then disappear from the legal radar. Have their methods become so good that they avoid detection or have they mended their ways. We always hope for the latter.

Having retired I moved away to a more peaceful location, where my work as a writer and copywriter could flourish in more genial surrounds. I was here that I decided I needed an office built in the garden to separate work from home.  I used a carpenter who I had used before and whose work I trusted to build my office. It was to have bi-fold doors and a window.

The windows – and fitters arrived on site and my carpenter told me that one of my old clients was fitting the windows. I said I hoped I did him a good job so I wouldn’t get shoddy revenge work done.  His reply was “Well he got prison for it.” Oh, now what have I done.

Half an hour later my former client, who I didn’t remember, came up to me. He introduced himself and when he told me his name I did indeed recall him. We chatted for about ten minutes. After he was released from prison he settled down, found a good woman and now has a child. As for the window fitting, he set himself up just over a year ago and was doing well. It was a great job done – his comment “I am just returning the favour.”

All in all an unexpected and pleasant foray back to my past. I am truly delighted that he has managed to settle down and start afresh. I truly wish him well and his company every success. Proof positive that people can change for the better.