Tea with Milk

In the summer of 1979 I spent six weeks as marshal for Mr Justice Hodgson on circuit in Birmingham.

Marshal is an ancient position. He is assistant to the judge, sits next to him in court, and lives in the judges’ lodgings. Here he is expected to do the judge’s bidding, lose narrowly at snooker, and make the afternoon tea.

On my first day I was asked to make the tea for the four judges, their clerks and marshals, about ten cups in all. Hodgson was the most senior judge present, so I took him his cup first. He asked me whether I had put the milk in first or last. I said first. He said that the correct way was for the milk to go in last. That, he said, was how Her Majesty the Queen took her tea.

I apologised and said I would make him a fresh cup, but he brushed my offer aside. He told me to throw away and remake all ten cups of tea, so that they were all made the correct way, with the milk in last.

The following week Sir George Baker arrived at the lodgings in Birmingham. As President of the Family Division, he was now the most senior judge present. On his first afternoon Sir George asked me if I would be so kind as to make the tea.

When I presented Sir George with his cup, made in what I now understood to be the correct way, he asked me whether I had put the milk in first or last. I said last. He said that the correct way was for the milk to go in first. That, he said, was how Her Majesty the Queen took her tea, and he had been to tea with Her Majesty only last week.

I apologised and said I would make him a fresh cup, but he brushed my offer aside. He told me to throw away and remake all the cups of tea, so that they were all made the correct way, with the milk in first.

Mr Justice Hodgson was not happy when I took him his cup, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Sir George made matters worse when he asked Hodgson if he did not think that tea tasted better when made the correct way, with the milk in first. Hodgson did not reply, and left his tea untouched.

At breakfast next morning Sir George took pity on me and announced that I would be his marshal for the rest of the term.

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See also:  Clarence House