Dick Russell, after graduating from Oxford, became articled to a firm of solicitors in the City, Titmuss Sainer & Webb, where he stayed for the next 35 years, practising company and commercial law and eventually becoming department head and managing partner. Since 2000 he has worked independently from his home in Berkshire as a legal consultant engaged in a variety of commercial and pro bono work. In this capacity he gave the RSL invaluable assistance first in documenting the arrangements relating to its possession and use of T.S. Eliot’s pen and then in framing its new Royal Charter and Byelaws. Dick is a voracious reader, with a passion for fiction of all eras, biography, history, politics, science and nature, and travel.