Good Manners and Bad Behaviour

Candida Slater

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Why I wrote this book

I wrote the book because like all diplomats, I passionately believe that diplomacy is terribly important, but nobody knows what diplomats actually do. Like all castes, diplomacy is governed by official rules and conventions, and these have changed radically over the last fifty years, as indeed has the status of diplomats and their wives. However, the unofficial rules, which really make the whole thing work, stay remarkably constant. This is the first book that describes these unofficial rules and the delicate and ever shifting relationship between diplomats, ministers, the press and that recent and unwelcome phenomenon, the taxpayer as client and paymaster. Diplomacy treads a fine line between solemnity and farce and a reader should buy the book, above all, because it is very funny.

Synopsis

What are diplomats for? Most people have only a vague understanding of what they actually do, except that they seem to belong to a privileged caste, and to lead lives governed by arcane rules of etiquette and convention.

However, beneath the veneer of exquisite diplomatic manners and immaculate dress, all human life is there, and, as illustrated by the stories in this book, much of it is entirely reprehensible. Guidance is therefore necessary, since Diplomatic Services dislike disorderly lives, so between 1949 and 1974, the Foreign Office published a series of helpful little booklets on How to Behave Abroad. These describe conventions which belong to another age but, although much of the advice put forward so confidently may reinforce outsiders’ worst fears about the Foreign Service, change was already working through the system and the transformation in attitudes over the twenty-five years during which they were produced carried the seeds of far greater upheavals to come.

Over recent years, an enormous cultural shift has taken place in what diplomats do and what they are for, and the idea of a foreign service as a specialist caste is fast vanishing into the mists of time. The Foreign Office thought that it was stronger than the Ministers who ruled it. It was wrong.

About the Author

1968 joined FCO as desk officer UN department, then moved to Private Office of Minister in charge of Britain’s entry into EU. 1972 married fellow diplomat, Duncan Slater (d. 2002). Resigned 1973 when husband posted to Brussels. Subsequent postings Vienna, Lagos, Muscat and Kuala Lumpur. Three children, Ian, Nicola and Christina. 2003 – 2007 returned to FCO. Also works as an abstract artist, exhibiting summer 2008 at la Galleria Pall Mall, London (www.lagalleria.org)

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