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
Paul Bailey (British writer) Visiting Lecturer in English Literature at the North Dakota State University (1977–79). He was awarded the E. M. Forster Award in 1974 and in 1978 he won the George Orwell Prize for his essay "The Limitations of Despair", first published in "The Listener" magazine. Bailey was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999. Paul Bailey's novels include "At The Jerusalem" (1967), which is set in an old people's home, and which won a Somerset Maugham Award and an Arts Council Writers' Award; "Peter Smart's Confessions" (1977) and "Gabriel's Lament" (1986), both shortlisted for the Booker Prize