Alan Garfitt We very much regret to announce the sudden death of Alan from a massive stroke on 18/12/08.  He died peacefully, surrounded by the family. Alan was Secretary of the Eastern Region for many years and kept very active in TARS, including  Broads day 2008, in spite of a recent knee replacement He will be greatly missed by everyone, and we send our deepest sympathies to Rosemary, Jonathan and Sally. His Honour Alan Garfitt: Cobbler's son who rose from secretarial duties at a London police station to become a circuit judge and write legal textbooks His Honour Alan Garfitt started his working life as a typist in a London police station and eventually became a circuit judge. It was a transformation made possible by the Second World War, but achieved only by years of hard study on the end of an Air Force bed. As a judge he quickly made an impact in somewhat controversial circumstances, summoning Sir David McNee, then the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, to the Royal Courts of Justice to answer for the police's failure to enforce a protection order that he had given to a woman in Brixton, South London. It was a summons of some constitutional importance, widely reported in the newspapers and the subject of intense debate on the television news: would the commissioner answer the judge's call? Answer it he did, reaffirming the authority of the courts at a time when the police were sometimes inclined to treat them as an inconvenience. Judge Garfitt went on to sit for many years at the county court in Cambridge, where he once issued an injunction against the heavyweight boxer Joe Bugner, who had failed to pay maintenance to his wife, an order that was again widely reported because it caused Bugner to postpone one of his comeback fights. "I'd like to go three rounds with that judge," he grumbled. Garfitt took great care to protect women's rights when they were going through a divorce: He had a consummate mastery of family law, and it was sometimes expressed in very forthright terms. Alan Garfitt was born in 1920, the son of the village cobbler, in Sedgeford, Norfolk, and won a scholarship to King's Lynn Grammar School. Like many country boys growing up during the Depression, he was drawn to the Metropolitan Police because it offered job security and a pension. He applied to Scotland Yard and heard nothing. The squire of the village, Lord Fermoy, wrote on his behalf and he was accepted within days. Too young to become a constable, he was sent to Brixton as secretary to the station inspector, Bob Lee, who became his mentor and a life-long friend. It was the emphasis on adult education at the end of the war that enabled him to raise his sights. He had served in the RAF, rising to the rank of flight sergeant. Kept on to prepare other airmen for demobilisation, he embarked on study for an external bachelor of law from London University. He was called to the Bar as a member of Lincoln's Inn in 1948 and practised thereafter on the South Eastern Circuit. He was elected chairman of the United Law Debating Society, wrote The Law of Contracts in a Nutshell (1952) and drew on his police experience for the five volumes of The Book for Police (1958). He was made a circuit judge in 1977, proving that this was possible for one of his background, although undoubtedly it was an unusual appointment at that time. He had worked with horses as a boy and was able to develop this interest with his daughter, Pat, founding the South Weylands Equestrian Centre and becoming chairman of the Association of British Riding Schools. In his later years he ran a smallholding, took to sailing and served as secretary to the eastern region of the Arthur Ransome Society. He is survived by his third wife, Rosemary, and their son and daughter, and by a son and a daughter from his first marriage. His Honour Alan Garfitt, circuit judge, was born on December 20,1920. He died on December 18, 2008, aged 87