SEK Hulme interview 17 November 2006

Yes. You alluded earlier to Jim Gobbo, who went on of course, among other things, to become Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria.

Yeah.

You shared a flat in London with Jim.

Yes, Jim and I had been in Magdalen together. We finished together. Jim had taken three years - the Rhodes people extended his normal two years to a third year. Really instead of doing two years law, he did two years law and one year’s rowing. He was president of the University Boat Club and they had the 100th boat race and all this kind of stuff. So my two years ended at the same time as Jim’s three years and we wanted to do the Bar exams and we found a place in London. You wouldn’t have got it 10 years later. We wouldn’t have been able to afford a little flat in the Kings Road, but it was in the Kings Road in Chelsea, where we wanted to be because we were quite close to several other friends that we’d made and we wished to be close enough so that their kindness could help take care of us.

I believe there was an amusing incident involving Jim and an English film starlet?

Jill - yes. She was very nice, Jill. She was one of the ones who had never quite made the jump into the big time. She was a half big time and she was very attractive, a very attractive woman and this may have been while we were still at Magdalen. Anyway he (Jim) was in London, I think, unexpectedly and he rang Jill, hoping to take her out that night and her mother said, “I’m sorry, Jim, Jill’s not in tonight. Gary rang up unexpectedly and she’s gone out with him.” They had just finished making a film that Gary was in, called High Noon.

So we’re talking, of course, about Gary Cooper, aren’t we?

We’re talking Gary Cooper, which is some competition for a university student, but I don't know what became of Jill in the end.

What was Jill’s surname?

I don't know that now either, but it was while we were living in the Kings Road that (Jim) met the Australian girl, who he subsequently married and I suppose Jill was in the background after that. I forget her name.

Conducted for the Bar Oral History project by Juliette Brodsky in Owen Dixon Chambers West and filmed by Rocco Fasano