Dr. Howard Brown, Chairman of the Stewartry U3A, welcomed members to the first group meeting of the New Year. He said that in February there would be a meeting to welcome new members, two member visits were also being planned in view of the success of visits in 2014 and new members had been appointed to the committee. In view of the increasing membership and large turn-out at group meetings it had become necessary to consider larger premises for meetings and later in the year it is proposed to move to Castle Douglas parish church hall and hold meetings on the fourth Tuesday of the month.
Ian Anderson, a retired diplomat, who now lives in New Abbey, then gave a talk with many interesting and amusing anecdotes from his career as a diplomat in different areas of the world.
HM Diplomatic Service is a cadre of officers who serve in embassies abroad putting forward British foreign policy and interpreting the policy of foreign countries. The size of embassies and the positions within them depends on the size and importance of the countries in which they are located. Foreign policy however is formulated by the Foreign and Commonwealth Off ice with Ministers.
Ian was born in Calcutta, India, but was educated in Ireland and studied foreign languages at Queen’s University. He initially worked for the Home Office in Northern Ireland but on joining the Diplomatic Service his first posting was to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Following a few years on the East German desk he was posted to Munich where he spent five enjoyable years. He was involved in lobbying and commercial work in view of the many large German companies based there. As Munich was twinned with Edinburgh there were frequent cultural visits and a G8 summit was held in the city while he was there. Ian told of an amusing incident when the then prime minister, John Major, refused to allow his helicopter to land on a cricket square!
He was then posted to Hungary at the time when Hungary had become a member of Nato. He was fortunate while there to be able to study the Hungarian language which Ian said was especially difficult.
Ian’s final overseas posting was to Santiago in Chile which gave him the opportunity to travel widely in South America. He found that there were a number of links with Scotland in Chile and that their navy had been established by a Scotsman, Thomas Cochrane who is still revered there today.
Finally Ian was attached to the Ministry of Defence in Glasgow. He said that he hoped that his talk demonstrated that serving in the Diplomatic Service is more than just a succession of cocktail parties but was important in implementing British foreign policy.
The next meeting of the Stewartry U3A will be held on Thursday 19 February at 2.00pm in the Gordon Hall, Castle Douglas when Dr.Lois Sproat will give a talk on the New Zealand health system. New members will be welcome. Details of the Stewartry U3A are available on www.stewartryu3a.org.uk.