In the olden days, when London was swinging, Beatles were singing and Hippies strode the earth, detailed assessments were called taxations and took place in the Supreme Court Taxing Office (SCTO), tucked away among endless corridors in the Royal Courts of Justice (RCJ). The SCTO was operated under the auspices of the Lord Chancellor’s Department, not the Civil Service as now. The Taxing Masters had individual chambers and were supported by four clerks of varying ranks, the lowest being the third-class clerk who manned (no women then) the outer office.
Those were the days before airport-type security so it was not difficult for potentially dangerous objects to be brought in.
One such weapon was an umbrella. One regular visitor to one outer office was a litigant in person who felt he had been badly treated so demanded to see the Lord Chancellor, as he thought ‘the Boss’ was the only person capable of understanding and solving his problem. He was always escorted down to the Great Hall in the RCJ and
