Alumni profile
Hilton Armstrong, Solicitor with Armstrong Foulkes LLP Middlesbrough (Law 1979)
I got to Newcastle through the back door. I had a decent offer but didn’t make the A level grades. I had already started the old Part 1 course at Christleton Law College in Chester when my parents got the call from the University saying someone had dropped out and there was now a place for me. I jumped at the second opportunity.
I loved my time there. I spent two years at Henderson Hall (now sold for a housing development I think) and a year in Kenton in a two up two down terraced house. I still keep in touch with many of the people on the course. In fact I met my two closest friends there. This year I am organising a reunion as it will be 50 years since we all started our Law course (in the old Clarendon Building). There should be about 25 of us, which isn’t bad out of about the 45 who graduated in 1979. We are having tour of the Law Faculty followed by a look around the Union and a meal on the Quayside. I am shocked to learn that there are no University run bars in the Union building – back in the 70’s there were at least four!
There were always plenty of opportunities for sport and recreation. In my first term I signed up for parachuting – I did two jumps – my first and last.
Following Graduation I went to Christleton Law College (again) for the old Solicitors Final Exam with 20 or so others from Newcastle. I qualified in 1982 and set up my own Firm in 1992 specialising in Claimant Criminal Negligence work in Middlesbrough – we were the first Firm in the country to do this – there are plenty about now.
I still work a couple of days a week, no client facing stuff, just costs recovery and management. That leaves plenty of time for running, swimming and travel.
The advice I always gave to students at school career evenings was not to be frightened of taking a Law Degree, it is a good Degree and pushes you up the interview ladder. It teaches you objectivity, how to identify the issues, and thereby simplifying any problem.
