Rumpole of the Bailey public school) and studied law at either Keble College or the fictional "St Joseph's College", Oxford, coming away with "a dubious third". He would not be eligible to be called to the Bar in England today, as a lower second is the minimum requirement. He was called to the bar at the "Outer Temple" (a fictional Inn of Court, named on the analogy of the Inner Temple, where John Mortimer was called, and the Middle Temple). Apart from the legal drama in each story, Rumpole also has to deal with his relationships with family and friends. His wife Hilda was
Rumpole of the Bailey Rumpole says he is 64 years old, suggesting a birthdate of 1910 (although Leo McKern, the actor who played Rumpole, was born in 1920). Rumpole's "Oxford Book of English Verse" is inscribed "Horace Rumpole, Little Wicks School 1923. Cursed be he who steals this book," (Series 4 – 1987); in "Rumpole and the Fascist Beast" it is mentioned that he studied at Birkenshaw School, as he calls it 'a wind-blasted penal colony on the Norfolk coast'; he bought his barrister's wig in 1932; first appeared in court in 1937; first met Hilda on 14 August 1938; served in the RAF