I must start by declaring an interest. Nearly 50 years ago I became Michael Kerr’s pupil at 3 Essex Court. I should have gone to John Megaw. But John was on the point of taking silk. So he recommended Michael instead. He said I could not do better, and he was right. Michael was a superb pupil master. He soon became also a great friend, a friendship which lasted to the end of his life. So how can I possibly write an unbiased review of his autobiography?

This brings me to the first and most important point. This is not an autobiography in the ordinary sense at all, still less is it a book of legal memoirs. (Michael once found a vellum-bound volume in a glass-fronted bookcase with the title Legal Tealeaves . He resolved never to write such a ridiculous book himself.) Most of the book was written for his children and grandchildren, and was published privately in 1994. It was in this form that I first read it. It is the story of a family: and what an astonishing story it is.

Michael’s father, Alfred Kerr, was the most celebrated and influential dramatic critic of his day in Berlin. He seems to have known everybody from Einstein to Richard Strauss. Michael’s mother was the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family. They lived in great style in the Grunewald. Michael and his sister Judy were brought up, if not in the lap of luxury, at least with every comfort. They had a happy childhood.

Then it all changed. In February 1933 Alfred Kerr learned that he was about to have his passport removed. He left the same day for Prague with nothing but a rucksack. His wife followed two days later, with Alfred’s portable typewriter. She then came back for the children. Michael was 12 at the time and Judy nine. All this is told unforgettably by Judy in her book The Day that Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, a book which is now required reading in schools all over Germany.

The story is now retold by Michael. After suffering terrible deprivation in Switzerland and Paris, the family arrived at last in England in March 1936. They were almost destitute. But Michael got a scholarship to Aldenham, and from Aldenham to Clare College, Cambridge, where in due course he got a double first. He had learned, as I did, the ignoble art of impressing examiners. When he arrived at Aldenham he was fluent in French and German. But I doubt whether he could speak much English. Nonetheless he was a successful and happy schoolboy since he was good at football (he always played in goal) and exceptionally good at tennis.

The story so far is beautifully told by Michael in a series of short chapters comprising the first half of the book. There is not a single dull sentence, and not a word of self-pity. And there is always Michael’s sense of humour, and his special sense of the absurd. This comes out best in his early encounters with girlfriends, of whom there seemed to have been a great many. I like best the description of the French schoolgirl whom he first met on holiday in England, and arranged to meet again in Paris. After a great deal of meticulous planning the magic moment came. And all she said when she saw Michael on the other side of the street was “tiens Michel, tu es là” . Michael calls this one of the greatest anti-climaxes of his life.

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