GEORGE Bilbie calls himself “the last of the last old-style family solicitors”.

And after turning 100 years old last week, there could be few lawyers more qualified to make that claim.

The country’s oldest solicitor has just renewed his practising certificate for next year and has no intention of retiring.

“We are the old-style family lawyer, not the divorce type, the true old-fashioned Edwardian lawyer who helps people,” he said. “That is the type of practice we have built — friendly. We try and look after people.”

Mr Bilbie, who tipped the century mark on Saturday, still goes to work two days a week at legal firm Bilbie Dan, which he founded in Newcastle in the 1930s.

He has had some of the same clients for 70 years, dealing with five generations of the same family, in some cases. Mr Bilbie was born in the mining town of Minmi, outside Newcastle, and left school at 14. He didn’t want to go down the mines like his father, and began work at a legal office, eventually becoming themanaging clerk.

He qualified to be a solicitor at what seemed then to be the relatively old age of 30 in 1938. Without a formal university education, that was the earliest a managing clerk could be admitted to practice.

He said the biggest improvement in the law that he’d seen, in terms of helping families, was the abolition of death duties. Changes to the power of attorney had also benefitted the public.

But changes in technology had made the biggest difference to working life. In the old days things happened at a more leisurely pace.

“It was easier to work because you didn’t have fax machines,” he said. `You could do a job, have it typed and post it and know full well you wouldn’t get an answer for three or four days.

“Today, you fax a document, say thank goodness for that, and in half an hour you get an answer back.”

Failing eyesight forced Mr Bilbie to give up driving two years ago, at the age of 98. But nothing can stop him swimming.

Always fit, except for the winter months he still goes swimming most days.

His only concession to age is he restricts his swimming to the Newcastle Baths, finding the surf a bit rough.

Specialising in the old-fashioned legal work of wills, estates, conveyancing and sorting out the secrets and problems of families, Mr Bilbie thinks of himself as the luckiest man in Australia.

“I have had a very happy life, a very happy married life, my wife has been wonderful and my family is so loyal and good,” he said. “I am one of the luckiest people out there. When you are brought up poor, you appreciate everything you get.

“Nothing was given to me very easily, but I achieved because I got help. A lot of people don’t realise their obligation to their ancestors, to other people.”

Mr Bilbie is keen to thank all those who assisted him along the way — the family who stumped up the money for his education, his old boss who gave him his first break as a managing clerk, meaning he could then do his law exams, and his “wonderful life partner” Eileen, 90.

“All of us at some time or other need help from somebody, doesn’t matter who we are or what we are. Too often, people forget their obligations to those people who helped them over the stile.”

Credit: John Stapleton, Valentina Bullinger