This is the last of Lord Denning’s four books setting out the way in which he has sought to develop English law in a career spanning nearly four decades on the Bench. In this respect it completes the series of books starting with The Discipline of Law in 1979, and followed successively by The Due Process of Law and the sensational What Next in the Law. The new work contains, in Book One, a sequel to Lord Denning’s autobiography, The Family Story. In it he tells with disarming and touching candour of the circumstances of the publication and withdrawal of What Next in the Law and of his decision to retire from the office of Master of the Rolls. He also tells of his activities since retirement, including his advice to householders during the water strike, and the consternation caused by the judgment in the Court of Appeal in the case of the Sikh Boy’s Turban.
Book Two contains a fascinating account of some of the leading contentious legal issues of the day, in which he has played a singular part. He discusses the problems of statutory interpretation and explains the legal significance of the new dichotomy between public law and private law as set out in his judgment in O’Reilly v Mackman in I 982. He traces the bumpy course of trade union legislation from 1906 to the present day, and places his own, often contentious, judgments on trade union matters in the context of that legislation. Finally he identifies the series of cases on which he and the Court of Appeal have been, or have appeared to be, on a collision course with the House of Lords. He ends, however, happily enough, with Geo. Mitchell Ltd v Finney Seeds Ltd, the last of his cases to go on appeal to the House of Lords, in which his judgment was, for a change, enthusiastically endorsed by the House of Lords.
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