The auction

I have been searching for information about picture frames and evidence of frame-making in colonial Melbourne up to the early 1850s. There is a good reason for this. It has to do with my work on Thomas Woolner. My preliminary conclusions are mixed. Before the earliest stages of the Gold Rush and during the first and second years (1851/52/53), it would seem that most if not all gilded picture frames, or any others for that matter, were brought to Melbourne from England, and circulated thereafter as a consequence of auction sales of personal property and chattels. We shall turn to an especially interesting one of those presently.

By the early southern autumn of 1855, however, there is irrefutable evidence of local manufacturing. Two advertisements placed in the Argus newspaper in Melbourne prove this. The first (Wednesday, March 7, 1855, page 8) reads:

PRINT Frame Makers,―The subscriber begs to direct the attention of the trade to his stock of Chance’s Patent Plate and Flatted Sheet Glass, Henry Brooks, 13 Stephen-street, between Flinders-street and Flinders-lane.

A second (Tuesday, April 3, 1855, page 1) is even more unequivocal:

WANTED a Picture Frame Maker and Gilder. Apply Yorke and Norton’s, 87 Collins-street east.

Obviously Mr. Brooks presumed that a picture-framing “trade” in Melbourne was sufficiently established and/or competitive to justify advertising his stock of high-quality glass from Chance Brothers of Smethwick in Staffordshire―they “did” the Crystal Palace―just as Yorke and Norton had reason to believe that it was worth their while to advertise for a frame maker and gilder. The availability of gold was, of course, the least of their concerns. It seems likely that in 1855 they, like everyone else, were suffering from the universal dearth of labor arising from the mass desertion of employees headed for the diggings, but the larger point is that the dizzying growth of the colony between 1851 and 1855 attracted not just people but businesses too, among them picture frame-makers and gilders.

Printed announcements of auction sales such as the following, meanwhile, shine rays of penetrating light into every corner of otherwise scantily documented colonial interiors. We know nothing of the circumstances that led to this fire sale, but it seems likely that the Vandiemonian Mr. R. H. Burbury was one of the many children of Thomas Burbury (?1809–1870), “a cottage-industry weaver who was sentenced to death at the Warwick Assizes for having taken part in burning down Beck’s steam factory at Coventry, where the weavers had been threatened with unemployment through the installation of new machinery.” According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, “this was one of the last recorded examples of industrial ‘Luddism’ in England. On the intercession of Edward Ellice, M.P. for Coventry, the sentence was commuted to transportation for life. Mr. Burbury arrived in Hobart Town in the York on 29 December 1832. His gaol and hulk reports gave him a good character and ‘respectable connexions,’ and the surgeon-superintendent’s report described his conduct on the voyage as ‘excellent’... He was granted a ticket-of-leave in December 1837 and a free pardon on 30 October 1839, also receiving local testimonials to his character, and pecuniary rewards.” He set up a butcher’s shop and mixed business at Oatlands in Van Diemen’s Land, and his sons eventually established themselves in law and business, evidently not without some disasters along the way.

Thus, the following announcement appeared in the Argus on Monday, February 23, 1852 (page 4):

DALMAHOY CAMPBELL

Has received instructions from R. H. Bu[r]bury, Esq., to sell by public auction, at his residence, Williams Town, THIS DAY, 23rd. INST., At Twelve o’clock precisely, All his valuable Furniture, and Household Effects, consisting of―Loo [i.e. lanterloo, the card game], work, writing, dining, rosewood and other tables, bedsteads; Cheffonier, mahogany couch, wardrobes, book cases, chairs; Looking glasses, gilt picture frames, folding screen, wash hand stands; Carpets, oil cloth, hearth rugs, table covers, damask window curtains, with trimmings and draperies, azimuth compass, medicine chest, glass ware, eight day clock, &c., &c.; A very sweet toned Piccolo Pianoforte; Richly plated coffee and tea pots, cream jug, sugar basin and cruet stand; Breakfast, dinner, dessert, and tea services; Saddlery, harness, water casks, buckets, garden tools; Frames and hand glasses, kitchen utensils, patent mangle, &c., &c.; About 80 plants, in pots, consisting of Magnolias, Cactus, Fuchsias, &c.; A large lot of Geraniums from the best plants, in V. D. Land; Bulbs, assorted, in great variety, &c., &c., &c.; Terms Cash. Catalogues can be obtained at the Auctioneers Rooms.

Now, Mr. Burbury’s family household was obviously a prosperous one, with servants—note the folding screen. The family’s firm link with Tasmania is made clear towards the end, as are the many hints toward respectability and culture and some evidence of daughters (“hand glasses,” plural). This was a household of books, botany, science, music-making, writing, games of cards, and, significantly, art, in all probability reproductive engravings surrounded by gilded frames. What, I wonder, became of the family of Burbury in their distress? Perhaps they were not in distress. The hyperinflation of the Gold Rush made the procurement of services such as the shipping of household goods prohibitively expensive, so families moving from one colony to another often found that it was cheaper to sell everything prior to their departure and start from scratch in the other place. However, in this instance the listing of easily portable items such as the azimuth compass and the hand glasses suggests a more drastic set of of circumstances. How one would love to peruse that melancholy, presumably printed auction catalogue. As far as I can see only one such document survives in the collection of the State Library of Victoria, and it is in manuscript, viz. “[Sale of furniture, account sheet], 1852, November 11 [manuscript]. 1852 MS BOX 134/5(b),” covering sundry articles of furniture sold by Messers. Dalmahoy, Campbell & Co. on account of a Mr. Lyall.

Brownie

We go the whole way back, my bear and I.

His name is “Brownie,” though I’m not sure why:

The threads are dappled grey, not brown, with which

Aunt Anne designed and made him, stitch by stitch,

Before my birth, love’s labor unremitting:

She never shone more brightly than when knitting.

I miss her still, my thrilling, clever aunt,

Her many skills she never wished to vaunt:

The semaphore she learned and trained to guide

Our ships past Rottnest Island, served with pride

In wartime—Russia was our ally then;

Her letters, and the sharpness of her pen,

But funny too; she taught me how to swim.

Her work was therapy, not mind but limb,

A physio, and “farmer’s wife” as well,

Admittedly far better in that shell

Than Uncle Henry handled sheep or cattle,

Through flood and drought with courage she did battle;

Like Mum, she built in winter massive fires,

Dispatched whole trees, killed snakes with fencing wires.

In town from time to time Aunt Anne would see

A play or concert, kindly taking me:

That’s how aged six or seven at the Palais

I saw Nureyev leap in my first ballet!

To Paris and l’Étoile she took me straight,

And climbed the arc, then let me stay up late.

Though shy, dear Brownie knows these things by heart,

Reminds me, too, how well she learned the art

Of complex origami from Japan.

How lucky that our smashing lives began,

My bear and me, not part of any plan,

But soon enough to know and love Aunt Anne!

The unstoppable telephone calls

For many months I have received almost daily pre-recorded telephone calls at home and on my mobile phone from an organization that refuses to identify itself, but purports to offer reduced interest rates on a credit card that I do not have.

These telephone calls are identical but never come from the same number twice. The numbers are scattered the length and breadth of the continental United States, and I receive them despite having been for several years on the Federal Trade Commission’s helpful “do-not-call” registry; having also lodged formal complaints about this unwelcome intrusion with the FTC and the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection—more than once to each, using both their online facilities and their telephone processes. However, as at today’s date the harassment continues.

I have on many occasions “pressed 1” in an attempt to beg the panhandler at the other end to stop calling, but, when finally connected to real people, they invariably hang up on me. This is simply infuriating. However, once I took a rather different approach, and engaged the consultant in lengthy conversation feigning extremely poor, broken English, successfully detaining him for 45 fruitless minutes. During this time I was able to furnish incorrect and misleading personal information in response to his requests for my own, and tantalized him by reciting an eleven-digit credit card number, only to re-read it patiently and add another digit. As well, there were invented addresses, tedious wire-crossing, etc. At a certain point when my amusement began to wane, I broke back into perfect English and threatened to waste even more of his and his colleagues’ time if they ever called me again. Very satisfactorily, he lost his temper and roared expletives and other abuse down the line—however this was apparently not enough to eliminate the nuisance. It continues.

I have today been told by the FTC and the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that there is nothing that can be done to stop this extremely irritating form of harassment, which, because they say it is perpetrated illegally, is paradoxically beyond the reach of the authorities who are charged with taking action against offenders. They seemed to be saying that only if the callers were legitimate would they be able to prevail upon them to stop. I find this impossible to understand. One likes to think that when offences are committed every effort will be made to bring those responsible to account.

However, according to the FTC and the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection my only options now are: (a) to change my telephone numbers, although there is no guarantee that similar calls will not eventually catch up with me; (b) to pay the telephone company to block each and every telephone number from which these calls are made—which is bound to fail because, as I stated earlier, they never come from the same number twice; or (c) to stop using the telephone. None of these options hold much attraction, except the last. I have always found speaking on the telephone to be a profoundly second-rate experience.

So there it is. What is to be done? I obey the law. I pay my state and federal taxes. I do not bother anyone if I can possibly avoid it. Why then should I or anyone else have to endure unending interruptions to my day, intrusions upon the privacy of my home, or irritating disturbances in my office—distractions that are becoming more intolerable as they continue, and as all efforts to stop them prove totally fruitless?

Private Lives

One thing leads to another. A Talent to Amuse, the seventieth birthday tribute to Noël Coward lately issued on CD—contains a snippet from Act I of Private Lives (1930), played in this instance by the youthful Susannah York and Richard Briers, but originally conceived as a vehicle for Coward himself and his great muse Gertrude Lawrence. It is so good that I have since then tracked down and devoured the whole play. The writing is, of course, brilliant—consistently clever and funny throughout—but encased in the substructure is a rich vein of defiance. “It doesn’t suit women to be promiscuous,” declares Elyot. “It doesn’t suit men for women to be promiscuous!” retorts Amanda with feeling. There is a presumption throughout that all four characters’ social credentials are impeccable. At one point in Act II Amanda refers to performing a “Court curtsey,” so we may assume that she has had occasion to deploy it. On the other hand, Amanda knows that the specter of a second divorce will put them in a “Hell of a mess socially.” There is not the merest hint at the Great War, although we may assume that Elyot and Victor are easily old enough to have fought in it and survived. In other words, there is much here of interest to anyone in search of an essentially Edwardian frame of mind, just as it surely exists in comparable novels by P. G. Wodehouse, Vita Sackville-West, and the work of any number of artists (visual or not) steering a parallel course through the 1920s and beyond. True, Amanda and Elyot profess absolutely no faith in anything. They do not believe in Heaven or Hell, merely, as Amanda puts it, “in being kind to everyone, giving money to old beggar-women, and being as gay as possible.” Even here, however, one detects an echo of much earlier but no less shockingly anti-Victorian frivolities, just as one may see the pompous veneers of Art Deco and fads such as silk dressing-gowns, nightclubs, golf, cocktails, and the gramophone all deriving much nourishment from a root system firmly embedded in the Edwardian decade. Coward himself, after all, served his dramatic apprenticeship to Sir Charles Hawtrey. Two other tiny but telling flecks of detail strengthen this impression and they concern diamonds and flamingoes.

In Act II, warming up to one of their bitter rows, Elyot quizzes Amanda about one of her male friends. “You took presents from him,” he accuses. “Presents? Only a trivial little brooch,” she replies defensively. “I remember it well,” Elyot continues: “Bristling with diamonds in the worst possible taste.” “Not at all. It was very pretty. I still have it and I wear it often,” says Amanda with a hint of provocation. There are a few clues in the play as to whose taste is the more reliable, Elyot’s or Amanda’s. Elyot made sure he saw the Taj Mahal in the moonlight. Amanda always suspected that it might look like a biscuit box. Nevertheless, the question in the mind of this middle-aged art museum curator, so recently and thoroughly immersed in the study of Edwardian diamonds, is this: What might a little brooch, ca. 1930, trivial or not, that is “bristling with diamonds in the worst possible taste” actually look like—one, moreover, that Amanda describes as “very pretty”? Was the lapse in taste somehow connected to the number and concentration of the stones, or in their cutting, setting, size, or even colour—fancy pink, perhaps, or intense fancy yellow, or even blue? Or is the problem located nearer to the form of the jewel, some perch-dwelling parrot, for example, or a spray of fuchsias, a miniature pineapple, or something equally vulgar? Not perhaps an issue to lose sleep over, but it is intriguing, because in the design and manufacture of precious jewels one detects one of the most striking curves of stylistic and market continuity extending from ca. 1905 to ca. 1925 and beyond, as if the Great War had simply never happened. This is one of the most interesting aspects of our exhibition, now barely seven weeks away—Heavens!—in which we have plotted several other such curves, all of which appear to defy many of the more conventional, currently accepted rules of Modernism in art and design.

As for the flamingoes, we also learn in Act II that travel throughout the empire did nothing to diminish the pain of Elyot’s divorce from Amanda. “I saw such beautiful things,” he says wistfully lying next to her on the sofa: “Moonlight shining on old temples; strange barbaric dances in jungle villages; scarlet flamingoes flying over deep, deep blue water—breathlessly, love, and completely unexciting because you weren’t there to see them with me.” “Take me, please,” she gushes, “take me at once. Let’s make up for lost time.” “Next week?” he suggests. “Tomorrow,” she urges. “Done!” And for emphasis Amanda adds: “I must see those dear flamingoes.” So the ne plus ultra of Edwardian aestheticism, with its strong, even insistent art nouveau prompt, our old friend the sinuous flamingo, glides over the waters and right into the heart of the mental and emotional décor of Coward’s scene almost as if nothing had disturbed it over the previous twenty years. It might almost be a direct paraphrase of Edwin Austin Abbey’s bizarre painting here at Yale. How interesting! I wonder if Noël Coward ever met Syd Long. In this respect at least, quite apart from the obvious, they had much in common.

A Talent to Amuse

To usher in the New Year, this morning I have been listening with complete fascination to A Talent to Amuse, a rare live recording of excerpts from the “midnight matinee,” which was staged on December 16, 1969, at the Phoenix Theatre in London in honour of Noël Coward on his seventieth birthday. The show was a marathon, with a cast of almost 200, and ran to 4 o’clock in the morning, but the excerpts here have been perfectly chosen and amount to just a fraction more than an hour and fifteen minutes. The CD has been made possible by the agreement and permission of the performers, their agents and, of course, in many cases, their executors and estates, as well as by the Noël Coward Society and Must Close Saturday Records (www.must-close-saturday-records.co.uk) (MCSR 3048). Dear Richard Warren put me onto this gem just before he died, but I haven’t had a chance to listen to it before now. Silly me, for it is wondrous. Highlights include John Gielgud in his prime reciting “The Boy Actor”; the great Irene Worth playing the brilliantly funny telephone sketch “Early Mourning”; Joyce Grenfell singing “If Love Were All”; Maggie Fitzgibbon singing “Why Do The Wrong People Travel?” and the marvelous Cyril Ritchard doing “Nina”—“She said ‘I hate to be pedantic but I’m driven nearly frantic / When I see that unromantic, sycophantic lot of sluts, / Forever wriggling their guts: / It drives me absolutely nuts!’” As well there are ravishing performances of “Mad About the Boy” by Cleo Laine and John Dankworth—again in their prime; “I’ll Follow My Secret Heart” by Patricia Routledge, and “That is the End of the News,” the batty ensemble from Sigh No More nimbly executed by Avril Angers, Hy Hazell, Stella Moray, and the great June Whitfield. Perhaps most moving of all, Celia Johnson recites “I’ve Just Come Out From England,” lines composed for imperial troops in Cairo, shortly before Noël Coward’s departure for Southeast Asia in 1943, and first printed in the Egyptian Mail. Seventy years is not such a long time, but these lines proclaim an English outlook, mood, and soul that might as well be 700 years farther distant.

The Peaceable Kingdom

With what thought is it best to close this eventful year of 2012 amid the snow and ice? I suppose one could do far worse than to contemplate this detail plucked from Edward Hicks’s wonderfully appealing painting, The Peaceable Kingdom (1829–30) in the collection of our sister institution the Yale University Art Gallery, now gloriously refurbished and re-opened on the other side of Chapel Street. In it the artist, a Quaker minister in Pennsylvania, gave expression to the Prophet Isaiah’s vision of God’s kingdom on earth (KJV 11:6): “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” There is something deliciously raffish about this particular leopard with his laconic eyes, lazy chin, and arched eyebrows, while the calf (evidently a quick developer), seems understandably perplexed, even discomfited, though compliant enough. Still, we know what is meant. The Peaceable Kingdom is hardly a figure of the often miserable, mostly shocking world in which we live now; indeed its promise and the object of its prayer seem as far as ever from our grasp. Still, it is a noble vision and one that is important to keep in mind as we stumble over the next hurdle and into the coming year, for what is the alternative? It might even do us a little good. Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous, healthy and peaceful New Year 2013.

The accident

One of my father’s more eccentric habits was whenever possible to photograph the relatively minor childhood illnesses and injuries sustained by his sons—a slightly scarifying suite of mumps, measles, playground scrapes, cuts, bruises, splinters, casts and bandages. I am not quite sure what lay behind this curious habit, but it has certainly left us with a powerful resource for memory-jogging. I suppose he must have felt that no record of an essentially happy childhood is complete without including at least a few of its less comfortable moments. The others are better able to date this photograph than me, but I think Dad must have taken it in the drive at 18 Denham Place while Simon was building the catamaran, ca. 1969, when I was about five. I am standing between the twin hulls of that fine, handmade work-in-progress. Some days earlier Mum took me to watch Hamish playing football on the oval at Grimwade House, and, in a moment of genuine joie de vivre—ignoring the football—I scampered along a low parapet in the direction of Orrong Road, tripped, fell headlong into a blocky brick quoin, and smashed my little nose to smithereens. I can see the spot, not too far from an enormous Moreton Bay fig that rises next to the dark blue scoreboard, but the subsequent images are but flashes of vague recollection. I remember the first aid room in the old house, along dark corridors, then staring into the white enameled kidney-shaped dish in my lap with spots of blood dripping down and rapidly accumulating in it. A large and sensible nurse is there in a white apron and starched cap. Mum is on an old black bakelite telephone. I remember the ward at St. George’s Hospital in Kew, at the end of another very long corridor, then bravely waving goodbye to Mum and Dad when in due course they had to leave me there. I remember the kindly old men in the adjacent beds, set at right angles to mine, who I imagine did their best to divert me, and the kindly nurse who, the next morning, after my operation, showed me my bandages and my two purple black eyes in the mirror and told me that I looked just like Batman. There is a bright shaft of light slanting in from the window next to my bed. The tears came fast and strong, for I had no idea who Batman was. The operation was performed by Mr. Ham, the ear nose and throat surgeon; not our general practitioner, Dr. Richard Ham, but Mr. Ham the specialist. In that old-fashioned locution, the medical specialists of Collins Street still went by the slightly superior “Mr.,” or, in the case of the surgeon who removed my appendix some years later, “Sir Edward” (Hughes). Lady Hughes—Alison—is still alive, and a loyal member of the 8.00 a.m. congregation at St. George’s Church of England, Malvern. I have a strong feeling that the basis upon which both surgeons were engaged was that they were golfing cronies of my father’s, but that is neither here nor there. Certainly my little nose was never quite the same afterwards, and to this day it lacks an underlying bone structure extending far past the uppermost portion of the bridge. My brothers have rather elegant, straight Roman noses, but mine was from then on different, broader, and a little spongier. This vaguely bothers me. Still, it has served me well, and shows no other outward signs of trauma. It is a matter of conjecture whether any lingering inward trauma is helped or hindered by a close perusal of Dad’s slightly weird photograph. Look at the posture: little hands clasped behind my back, gently biting the bottom lip, gazing up quizzically, feet firmly planted, delightful little knees—rather formal. Obviously I have never since scampered along anything remotely resembling a parapet, and much less one punctuated by squat brick quoins.

The consul-general

Old Hanoi

Every bit as engaging as His Honour Mr. Craig in Dubai, Daphne Park (the late Baroness Park of Monmouth) furnished her valedictory dispatch to the Secretary of State from the British consulate-general in Hanoi on October 25, 1970—St. Crispin’s Day. Although she was H.M. Consul-General, it is now openly acknowledged that she was also a high-ranking, experienced, and extremely effective officer of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), so her tour of duty in Hanoi was a dangerous one. Yet even if she had not been a British spy, Lady Park’s despatch reveals a keen eye for the conditions of life and the almost inconceivable hardships endured by ordinary people in North Vietnam, even while she and all the other western diplomats were prevented from making more than the most superficial contact or communication with anyone. Even so, she was alert to the stoicism and cheerfulness and the domestic economy of families, and, above all, the mood and appearance of Vietnamese children—and reported everything she saw in the absence of anything more politically useful or diplomatically promising. Except for Pyongyang it is difficult to imagine a tougher or more trying “hardship post” than Hanoi during the later stages of the Vietnam war.

Sir,

The Residence was formerly a house of ill-fame. Handerchiefs are boiled in the saucepans, other dirty clothes in the dustbin. When the household cat disappeared, opinion was divided whether she had been eaten by the neighbours or the rats. When even more water than usual flooded the bathroom floor, and even less (though more noisome) water came from the tap, and the plumbers eventually came, they withdrew for three days to attend cadre meetings before removing the dead rats they found in the pipes. No rodent extermination exists because, officially, rats have been eliminated. Unfortunately the rats do not know this. When Ambassadors come to dinner and it rains, the drawing-room floor is covered with buckets and saucepans to catch the water from the ceiling. The major-domo at the Residence has been at some earlier time an inmate of a mental institution; the misfortune is that he was ever released. Nearly every necessity of life must be imported, though only upon receipt, after some months, of import permits listing each jar of herbs, each bundle of toothpicks. The Director of Customs has sometimes refused a permit, or proposed to allow in only part of the order, on the ground that Her Majesty’s Representative “has had enough this year” and does not need it. The presents most prized by local staff, when they dare to accept them, are razor blades, bicycle repair outfits, bottles (empty) and Aspro…

The small but fortunate number of those who have served here will find no difficulty in guessing that this dispatch comes from Hanoi. They too have been Non-Persons, issuing visas on affidavits, and yearly Queen’s Brithday invitations to Viet-Namese, who do not come, on cards without crests. They have received warnings not to enter forbidden areas, but no map defining them. Out of tender Viet-Namese regard for their lives and health they have been yearly refused a bicycle, as well as being denied access to the swimming pool, the International Club, the diplomatic shop, and, for nine years, permission to travel outside the city. But like me, most of them have wanted to come here and have left with some regret—though never quite enough to ask for another year. The very great political interest of the post is still not enough to account for its fascination; I have tried therefore in this valedictory dispatch to define the peculiar flavour of Hanoi, and to communicate what it is possible to learn about the North Viet-Namese from the sheer physical fact of living here.

The disagreeable and restrictive features of life in North Viet-Nam which I have cited are no more than incidental, though they wear away time, temper and sometimes health. The real hardship lies in the fact that, surrounded by Viet-Namese, we can know none of them. It is in part our non-recognition of North Viet-Nam which creates this special vacuum round us, and it is a wise policy which limits our tour here to a year: it might be difficult to report objectively for longer. Yet even if the end of the war should bring about the establishment of diplomatic relations and hence the relaxation of the present restrictions upon us, isolation from the Viet-Namese will continue, I believe, to be the rule. The unconsciously arrogant reserve which the Viet-Namese display at home, even towards their friends, will be increasingly reinforced by the defensive security processes of a Communist society. The shooting war over, the ideological war will go on, and there are few grounds for believing that Communism has been a temporary expedient here and that the rulers of North Viet-Nam are merely waiting to slough their Communist skin and appear in fresh and uncommitted nationalist colours. It may be a long time before this snake changes skin again…

When I arrived here 13 months ago buffaloes grazed on the grass in front of the Consulate-General, the factory defence militia practiced unarmed combat and grenade throwing there, an occasional cyclo-pousse creaked past carrying a family and its chattels, and at night the bats swooped and the cicada were noisy. None of this has changed. But the sentry outside the Algerian Embassy has planted a garden round his sentry-box, Hanoi is full of new lorries, the shape of Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum is under debate, and the State Plan for 1970 has allowed the Residence roof to be mended; my successor will not need to catch the drips in the drawing room. A new kitten appeared at the Residence this month, and may one day kill rats if it survives. We have moved a few steps out of Limbo for we have been allowed to travel, and perhaps even hell is a little less hot than before. The children are back from the country and Hanoi is a year further from the war. I do not yet know, and neither do the Viet-Namese, whether that means they are a year nearer to peace.

I am sending a copy of this despatch to to Her Majesty’s Representatives in Saigon, Washington, Paris, Moscow, Vientiane, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Peking, Tokyo, Canberra, Wellington and Ottawa and to the Political Advisor to the Commander-in-Chief at Singapore.

I have, &c.,

Daphne Park

Officially Lady Park (known to her friends and colleagues as Daffers) went from the Belgian Congo to Hanoi, and proceeded thence to be British chargé d’affaires in Outer Mongolia. Unofficially, however, in 1975 she rose to become Controller, Western Hemisphere, of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), the highest rank then attained by a British woman in the espionage community. She died in 2010.