Testing times at the centre of world focus

TAKING things easy: life is now a little less hectic for Paul and Jenny Vincent

Martyn Meets... lawyer PAUL VINCENT, who was thrust into the spotlight as the lawyer of the test tube baby pioneers
HE’S one of those people I seem to have known all my life, but I don’t know how, why or where from.

And I suspect that a lot of other Oldham folk feel the same about this London lad who has integrated himself into the very fabric of Oldham society.

Recently-retired Paul Vincent was a senior partner at Oldham’s longest-established business, Wrigley Claydon Solicitors.

Well he remains a consultant at the Union Street legal firm, I suspect the bar at Saddleworth Golf Club will see rather more of Paul these days.

For Paul, and I know this from experience, is a man who knows how to enjoy himself. He will not be found wanting when it comes to filling his time.

That’s no bad thing. I mean, anyone who can get himself to China and Hong Kong as part of a trade mission, visit Manila in the Philippines for three weeks while a client picks up the bill and is sent on a mission to America — taking in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco, while having to attend one business meeting — is clearly a resourceful individual.

Did I mention Japan, followed by a direct flight to Florida, or two trips to South Africa?

And all the while he would have been eating, something — anything; this is with a man a voracious appetite for anything remotely edible.

Having baulked at some of the outrageous offerings put before me at banquets in China’s hinterland, which Paul wolfed down with relish, I speak with authority on the subject. Paul, on the other hand, speaks with authority on all things legal after a career spanning 44 years in the profession, including being at the epicentre of the Louise Joy Brown test-tube baby story which took the world by storm in 1978.

A latecomer to the world of advocacy, he came north to study law at Manchester Polytechnic — now part of Manchester Metropolitan University — met his wife Jenny, a Burnley girl and now he’s one of us. And so is the delightful Jen.

“I was born in Uxbridge and brought up and educated in Wembley. But while I was in Manchester, my parents moved to Chatham so visits home became less attractive as I didn’t have any mates there,” he confided with honesty.

Before college though, Paul worked for five years upon leaving school at 16, with Middlesex County Council in the land-search department. His manager noted his potential, suggested a law degree and the rest, as they say, is history.

On leaving the poly he took a post as an articled clerk with a Manchester firm and two years later applied for a job with Wrigley Claydon Armstrong housed in the Prudential Buildings in Union Street. Jen drove Paul for his interview and their first impressions of Oldham were less than favourable.

“It was raining, it was a Tuesday so it was half-day closing, there wasn’t anyone about... it was grim,” are their joint recollections of that first day in the borough that was to become home.

By now he was married, having met pharmacy student Jenny at what both were quite happy to call “the cattle market” UMIST bar which hosted dances on Wednesday evenings.

It was mutual love at first sight and they have been together ever since, Jenny pursuing a parallel career as a dispensing chemist until her own retirement.

All the while this busy professional pair brought up three boys — Tim, Ben and Nick — and moved from Greenacres to their current property in Waterhead.

Three years into his new job, Paul was invited to become a junior partner.

“That was it really — we were now staying in Oldham,” said Paul, who smiles while admitting that this isn’t such a bad place after all, far removed from that first-day memory.

Had he not stuck around, one of the most memorable chapters of his career would never have been written.

Patrick Steptoe was a client of the firm when a 28-year-old Paul was asked to draw up legal papers for a research trust to be set up by Steptoe and Professor Bob Edwards concerning the whole IVF issue which the pair were pioneering.

That simple request catapulted Paul into a maelstrom of events that reverberated around the planet as press from all corners of the globe descended on Oldham. At one point, Paul and Jen were convinced their phone had been tapped.

“It was mad, chaotic, yet fascinating all at the same time,” he recalls.

John and Lesley Brown asked Paul to draw up a legal agreement between themselves and the Daily Mail for exclusive access to their story — and “John would frequently arrive at my offices covered in a blanket to escape the attention of the press,” said Paul.

The sheer hectic pace of life and the depth of interest in the story staggered everyone involved. Paul recalls having lunch one day in the Bernie Inns Cafe Monico in the cellars of the Prudential Building and all the while a photographer from Japan was squatted on the floor alongside.

“Press people were literally camped out in our reception, they would sit there hour after hour, day after day, waiting for me to arrive or leave and all the while they were missing the action. We actually signed the agreement with the Browns in my kitchen, here in Waterhead.

“It was signed and sealed at 2.30am. There were stories in every newspaper and the Chronicle had a mole you know, I think at the hospital. They seemed to get lots of inside stories . . . never did find out who was their source.”

Those manic days took another twist when the Government’s publicity arm, the Central Office of Information, agreed a deal to film the birth. Paul drew up a binding legal agreement which prevented the film being released for 28 days.

But such was the intense media interest the Government of the day decided to break the embargo and Paul found himself speaking to the Minister of Health, one Roland Moyle.

Said Paul: “The minister told me the agreement wasn’t binding and I said ‘well, I’ve read the contract and you haven’t and I’m a lawyer and you’re not.’”

Paul took a call from the Mail who asked him to secure an injunction.

“I was at home, it was late in the evening, but I made the arrangements with a judge in chambers and eventually raised the minister by telephone. He was in the House of Commons.

“Mysteriously, my phone at home suddenly stopped working and I had to sit on the stairs at my neighbour’s house talking to the minister, who eventually backed down and the embargo was honoured.”

Paul was at Boundary Park Hospital, Maternity Ward 3, when Louise Brown was carried out by her mother to a gathering of the world’s media. Several hours later he was back in the same ward with Jen, who was pregnant with their second son Ben.

“The staff were quite astonished to see me again, I can tell you,” he laughed.

Today, life is a little less hectic. Paul was planning a lunch with his colleagues at Oldham Rotary Club — he’s president this year — and Jen is, well, happy doing very little.

Me thinks they have earned their retirement years.