When I joined the Foreign Office, I was astonished1
at the lack of formal preparation for the job. In those days,
the Civil and Diplomatic Service entrance exams took place
in three stages, by the end of which hundreds of unsuccessful4
candidates had been knocked out. Only a score or so survived
the final stage to be admitted to the Foreign Office.
My induction course lasted about a month. Then,7
one morning, I was taken to the West and Central Africa
Department, told that I would be responsible for
French-speaking African countries plus Liberia. And that10
was that. I was now, at the tender age of twenty-two,
a wet-behind-the-ears but fully functioning British diplomat.
I was put unsparingly to the test in my first month.13
I was summoned to the office of the Minister of State,
a genial politician called George Thompson, who was about
to receive an official visitor from the Central African Republic.16
I was there to interpret between English and French. The usual
pleasantries of a courtesy call were easy enough to translate.
But, just as I was beginning to relax, the official told19
Thompson that one of the main exports from his country
was roselle. What on earth was roselle? With panic rising
in my gorge, something made me blurt out “jute”. To my22
horror, there ensued a lively conversation in which Thompson
said “jute” and the African minister said roselle.
After the meeting, I raced back to my office and25
looked in my dictionary. Roselle was not there. I tried out
the mystery word on a French friend, but he had not heard
of it either. But the next day, he called back. What was28
a British minister doing, he asked, talking to a politician from
the Central African Republic about a plant that was used as
a diuretic and food-colouring agent? My heart sank. I saw my31
career slipping beneath the waves before it had hardly begun.
“Oh, and by the way,” he added, “it’s also used sometimes as
a substitute for jute fibre — if that’s of any interest to you.”.34
Christopher Meyer. Getting Our Way: 500 years of adventure and intrigue: the inside
story of british diplomacy. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009, p. 7-9 (adapted).