It has been touching and rather uplifting to read the many tributes to Sir James Munby, former president of the Family Division of judges in England and Wales who passed away on New Year’s Day.

You expect obituaries of retired judges to recall their role in landmark cases, positions they held, and their legal legacy, but I have been struck that so many reference above all his humanity, his patience and generosity of spirit.

I met Sir James first in the wings of a Families Need Fathers/Both Parents Matter AGM and conference in Bristol in 2017. He was the main speaker, scheduled to take to the podium after the official AGM business was over. I was assigned to greet him on arrival and keep him company for an expected few minutes.

The AGM business continued. And continued.

I can therefore testify to his patience. Our initial polite exchanges evolved into what I can describe as yarns from the bench. He revealed his education began in Aberdeen, where his father was working for a spell. He talked about the genuine importance he placed on getting to meet as many groups and organisations as possible to hear their experiences of the family justice system at first hand.

So in February 2020 when we renamed and relaunched as Shared Parenting Scotland we invited the now retired Sir James to be the keynote speaker. He readily agreed.

Alas, Storm Ciara intervened disrupting all train travel on the day. We recall fondly as the evening seemed to be collapsing around us his enthusiasm for attempting to deliver his lecture by some means or other (as yet uninvented) from the melee of stranded travellers at Kings Cross Station in London.

I have found the text of the lecture he never got to deliver, setting out not only the changes in the law that had happened during his tenure but also, his approval of quality journalists taking an interest in family court proceedings, filling the knowledge vacuum created by the reluctance of first instance judges to publish judgments. It’s the same here.

He equally criticised the poor quality of the official data published by the Ministry of Justice – “completely useless” – and urged academics into the fray. “Unless … initiatives are coupled with a serious programme of really independent research, they will not be able to expand their recommendations beyond the purely anecdotal base.”

In his talk Sir James would have said: “Much of what I have to say is very critical of the English system, and I set it out so that you may avoid our failings.” It seems clear from this Scottish distance that successive presidents of the Family Division – Sir Nicholas Wall, then Sir James, and currently Sir Andrew Macfarlane who demits office later this year – have been committed reformers, trying to address some of the failings that damage public trust in the family courts.

At Shared Parenting Scotland we remember Sir James as a beacon of humanity and courtesy amid the Storm Ciara of family law.