Uriah Heep & I: There I was ... on a July morning

Uriah Heep and I had a lot in common. We were both Solicitor's clerks in London. Indeed, I became a Solicitor and had rooms in Lincoln's Inn, not far from where Heep's creator, Charles Dickens, introduced us to his prot嶲?in his 1850 novel 'David Copperfield'. Uriah himself was marked by his insincerity and cloying 'umbleness. Today the fictional character Uriah Heep has become a byword for a falsely humble hypocrite. Trouble is I found a good few Uriah Heeps in the legal profession and on its periphery in my 30 years as a Solicitor over a century and a half later. These 'professionals' had learnt nothing from the lessons of Mr Dickens. Very 'Eavy Very 'Umble was, most fittingly, the first album released by the rock band Uriah Heep - in 1970. The genuinely very 'umble Mick Box is the only surviving member from that first line-up who is still in the band. He was part of the 1972 group that conquered the world with the definitive Demons and Wizards album - David Byron, Ken Hensley, Lee Kerslake, Gary Thain and Mick himself. It was the song 'Paradise and the Spell' that got me hooked and led to my enduring admiration for all things Heep. I had just left my Church of England Primary School in 1969 in Brentwood in Essex when the incarnation of Dicken's Uriah Heep emerged. For many years drummer Lee Kerslake lived in Brentwood not far from the Robin Hood Pub where he'd often be found playing the piano and singing along with the locals. A very upbeat and jovial character who told me outside his bank in the High Street in the autumn of 1984 that David Byron "is finished". Lee's time in Brentwood also came to a premature end - he soon had to sell his home to pay the legal fees and costs in his disastrous litigation in the United States with a certain Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon. All over his time with the band Blizzard of Ozz and his unpaid royalties off two albums. The Prince of Darkness had cast Lee Kerslake into a Hell on Earth and it certainly ruined Lee's health in the long term. His lawyers, in hindsight, needed shooting. Sue Ozzy and Sharon - in the United States moreover - at your peril! I'd love to know the legal advice Lee was given.