Daughters of Britannia: The Lives and Times of Diplomatic Wives

by Katie Hickman

"The reverse of stuffy" is how one British reviewer characterized Katie Hickman's portrait of English diplomatic wives. Unstuffy it is.

Hickman, whose writing is graceful and sprightly, describes the unusual and often difficult lives of Foreign Service spouses. Tracking these feisty transplants from the 17th century to the present, she shows how these very significant others coped with everything from tropical epidemics to kidnappings to small household budgets.

Warm-weather reading.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Womens, British Literature, Historical, Politics

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Katie Hickman was born into a diplomatic family in 1960 and has spent more than twenty-five years living abroad in Europe, the Far East and Latin America. She is featured in the Oxford University Press guide to women travellers, Wayward Women.

Reviews

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Indian epic Ramayana, there is a poignant scene: Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, is forced to renounce his kingdom and go to the forest for fourteen years. His young wife Sita insists on accompanying him, against his better counsel. As they step out of the palace, Sita asks: “How much further to the forest?” It is said that at this, Rama’s eyes moistened for the first time.

I think most of the the so-called “Diplomatic Wives” mentioned in Katie Hickman’s Daughters of Britannia would have sympathised with both Sita and Rama.

England, as the pioneering marine and trading power, must have been the first country to understand the need for diplomats. Even before the country started sending official envoys, the East India Company was posting its employees at strategic points around the globe to safeguard and further their commercial interests. These postings were isolated, difficult and many a time downright dangerous – according to the maxim of those days, “no place for a woman”. However, the wives of these diplomats had little choice – they were forced to follow their husbands into the wilderness, because “it was a wife’s duty to be at the side of her husband”.

It would have been bad enough if these poor souls were forced move out of a sane, civilised country to savage barbarian lands (in their viewpoints, at least) – they were also expected to fulfil an unpaid official function: that of the diplomat’s wife. It was an exacting task, emotionally and physically draining, especially a couple of centuries back when the world was not the known and familiar space it is now. These ladies had to make official visits to Sultans’ harems, host diplomatic dinners for hundreds of people and sometimes attend official functions along with their husbands without making a faux pas in a totally alien culture. And most of the junior diplomats’ wives had to put up with cranky, eccentric “ambassadresses” (the ambassadors’ wives) who treated them little better than slaves in a rigidly enforced social hierarchy.


Lady Isabel Burton, wife of Sir Richard Burton

There were also the physical dangers. Before the aeroplane was invented, the journey to the “posting” comprised terrifying treks across inhospitable mountains and death-defying voyages across stormy seas. Most of the host countries (especially the tropics) were home to a number of diseases which were potentially deadly to the English physique. There were even scourges like the plague to be encountered! And this is apart from the very real dangers of captivity, rape, torture and death which were always present in the turbulent climes these ladies inhabited.

Yet most of them bore it all with true British fortitude (stiff upper lip, Jeeves!) and many wrote poignant and amusing memoirs, full of underplayed English humour. Katie Hickman, herself a “diplomatic daughter”, has researched these extensively and produced a fascinating book, drawing upon her mother’s reminiscences and her own childhood memories too in the process.


The swashbuckling Lady Anne Fanshawe

These diplomatic wives span across the years from 1661 to the present. Forty-six of them are credited as “principal women”; however, a number of others are mentioned in passing so I suspect the number may exceed a hundred. Sixty-two books have been credited in the bibliography, apart from various magazines (the main ones being various issues of BDSA [British Diplomatic Spouses Association] and DSWA [Diplomatic Service Wives’ Association] house journals). The amount of research is extensive and exhaustive.

The organisation of the book is also excellent: instead of presenting the stories chronologically or sequentially, Hickman has chosen to divide the book into chapters which explore the various facets of the diplomatic life. Thus we have chapters on “Public Life”, “Social Life”, “Hardships” etc. to name a few. In each of these chapters, the author explores the experiences of her protagonists separated across time and space, emphasising the similarities and differences alike – so what the reader gets is a continuous narrative, a feeling of solidarity among these poor daughters of a colonial power, forced to bear the standard of their country in hostile atmospheres – mainly out of necessity, not out of choice – yet doing it in grand fashion, most of the time.


Victoria Sackwille-West

Some of the wives stand out as special characters. Isabel Burton, wife of Sir Richard Burton, following him wilfully into the jungles of Brazil; the swashbuckling Ann Fanshawe; Victoria Sackville-West, whose stain of illegitimacy is washed away in the diplomatic arena; Emma Hamilton, who climbed the ladder all the way from prostitute to princess (well, metaphorically)… and many more. As I read this book, I was filled with admiration for these daughters of the empire – all the more so, because as an expatriate, I know the cultural shock of adjustment even in these modern times.

A very worthwhile read.


The ravishing Lady Emma Hamilton

Review also on my blog .

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook #173

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Katie Hickman seems to have three major points here: trying to redeem the neglected "women's work" that countless female diplomatic partners have done supporting their husband's career, exploring the ways in which the helpmeet role of the spouse has changed (or not), and fighting the perception that diplomacy is just a bunch of overpaid, to-the-manor born snots going to balls. All while, seemingly, trying to give us a sense of the history of the service, and the many different kinds of women and families that participated in its way of life.

That's a whole lot to take on.

So perhaps it is no surprise that after starting out with all of that, this book doesn't come out as very fulfilling. It reads more like a collection of notes and stories, organized by a vague theme, and perhaps meant to be read as separate essays in a magazine. It needs some polishing, some editing, and an professor to write in red ink all over this "Focus, focus, focus!"

As the author is herself the child of diplomats and seems to have a lot of contacts with important people in the service and their wives, I wish that she had stuck to what she knew. The best chapter in the book was the one entitled "Children," where she clearly has extensive personal knowledge, knew many people with something to say and/or had a ton of archival research about people with something to say, and could present all sides of the experience of parents and children in a coherent fashion that really made you think about the effect that the diplomatic life had on families. But instead she insisted on wandering all over the place, trying to give us a full historical picture from 1660s Istanbul to what was her present day (1990s), with the result that it just feels rambling and unwieldy, and the audience feels as if they've been gypped with every short, incomplete story that she tells. I wanted her to either introduce me fully to these women, give me a picture of all their lives as much as possible, or treat them completely impersonally as examples, and she didn't really do either. She would tell you this very touching story about a woman who you hadn't heard about before, with no background, then the woman would totally disappear. It was very unsatisfying storytelling and certainly not a very good history, if that's what she meant to do.

What it was, however, was a helpful guide for someone whose family may be entering the foreign service (even if it is based on the British service, one imagines things aren't done too differently over here). It really does present to you the full breadth of problems that you might be likely to encounter, shows you horrible things happening to couples and families and how they dealt with it, and makes you think about the material costs and benefits of living the diplomatic life. As I said, "Children," was the most striking chapter, but it is followed closely by "Contemporary Spouses," and "Rebel Wives," which talk about people who lived (and live) outside of the stereotypical mode of the diplomat and the supportive, smiling, spouse, the very real pressures to conform and the despair of watching your life be completely consumed by someone else. This profession seems to be unique in the modern world in that it is not only considered acceptable, but preferable, for the non-diplomat spouse to not work (especially as one gets more senior at an embassy) and support the work of the diplomat.

This could certainly have been much better. I hardly even think that this qualifies as a book, just a hodgepodge collection of Notes From the Edge. But if you're willing to mine for it and wait for it, there's definitely things to be got out of this.

[Dinah Küng · Rating 5 out of 5]

Along with a similar book, Women of the Raj, a fantastic tribute to the courage, imagination, energy and sheer perseverance of British diplomatic wives in putting the best face on what were in many cases, impossible situations. In these times, when globalization is the byword, it's hard to appreciate when it was absolutely a question of personal and professional survival to remain true to a particular culture and upbringing in the face of enormous challenges and physical dangers. Loved it.

[Cassandra Kay Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was very well researched and had some absolutely amazing stories embedded in it. The grandiose moments in court coupled with the desperate hardships of traveling and living in Remote outposts like Persia and Brazil during these times was very compelling. It spanned mostly from the late 1800 up until the present day although the focus was fairly heavily on the early and mid 1900's and had a collection of some of the most fascinating and intriguing stories of the lives of the wives of Ambassadors from Britain overseas. It included so many women and so many different outposts though that at times it disconnected you from some of these women and put them as another on a list. I think the author would have done a little better to focus a bit more on some of these women themselves instead of flitting between each subject and encompass all of the women at once. Although I must admit her approach did help the reader to draw conclusions as a more holistic perspective of what these ladies collectively went through. Overall a very enjoyable jaunt. You get camel rides in the desert with harems, dinners in the court of France, and you also get a feel for the trials and hardships of this life. Plagues, war, loneliness, the costumes in the weather, the detachment from children and family, physical pain and disease. A very powerful read.

[Gail Carriger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun read, and factual, so far as I can tell, but the information is not organized chronologically. More this book talks about the experience of being a diplomat's wife. So a paragraph on packing might include three different women in three different places and times: one 1780s Paris, one 1950s America, one 1870s China.

As a alt-history author, I tend to need information about travel to a specific place at a certain period of history, well organized, and easily assessable. This book is utterly useless for that. It rarely explains historical words or terms and has a undersized index and glossary.

It read a little bit like someone's PhD thesis gone wrong. It was a comfortable read for non-fiction, and I enjoyed it, but as a researching author I mainly found it frustrating. I ended up going through her bibliography and ordering a primary source instead.

[Eloise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This could be a little dense at times but it's a great anecdotal snapshot of those who've "married in" to the British Diplomatic Service and the social roles and expectations of women, in the Empire and more recently. The narrative focuses on a few key historical figures (who I would be delighted to read more about) and the more recent and emotive topics focused on the correspondence and experience of family, friends and the author herself.
I did feel that the later chapters dealing with what it meant to be a modern diplomatic spouse (including the pressures on diplomatic husbands), and the experiences of embassy families in conflict (particularly The Troubles) could have been expanded on, perhaps in their own book.

[Megan Spilker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book I couldn't put down and one of the biggest inspirations for becoming an Ambassador or someone in the realm of diplomacy. The real-life stories of these incredible women are utterly gripping. The accounts of incidents overseas are completely amazing that one would almost assume that the whole book is a work of fiction. A fantastic read for both genders.

[Plum-crazy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughly engrossing book about the lives of various women who were all Diplomatic wives over the years (from the 1660s onwards) & were stationed in a variety of countries. Whether they were sent to far flung places, often inhospitable parts of the world, or more cultured cities, these wives were expected to support their husbands & run a household in very different circumstances to those they'd been bought up with. Whether in the 45 + heat of Baghdad or the -50 cold of Mongolia, through war & plagues, cut off from family for months, sometimes years at a time, these women seemed to be the embodiment of "keep calm & carry on". And at all times (& it was ALL times) standards had to be adhered to - woe betide the wife who failed to follow protocol. A wife could make or break her husbands career.

I had intended to make a note of all the bits that piqued my interest, shocked me or made me smile but there was something on nearly every page: jars of Russian jam over fermenting & exploding; the eccentric Lady Tyrell who apparently spent most of her time up a tree in the Embassy gardens; & the descriptions of fabulous jewels & opulent palaces. It all kept me thoroughly entertained.

These two in particular made me smile:

"In 1947, when Masha Williams first arrived in Baghdad during the ferocious summer heat, she found none of her heavy luggage had arrived, although her fur coat had been sent from the cleaners at Harrods."

"There were many wives, Mrs Steel noted reprovingly, who never went in their kitchens at lest their appetite for breakfast be spoiled by seeing a servant "using his toes as an efficient toast rack...or soup strained through a greasy turban"


....& I was quite surprised by this comment from one wife stationed in Northern India in the 1940s:

" Considering the hardships and difficulties of the route - over snow-covered passes, risking avalanches, crossing rivers swollen by melting ice in summer along narrow mountain paths - it was remarkable how promptly and regularly our post was delivered"


All-in-all a fascinating read about a world totally alien to me & one, that while I enjoyed reading about, have no wish to be a part of. All those social gatherings & rules..no thanks.

[Romily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent addition to books about social history, especially those which resurrect the neglected lives of women: in this case the diplomatic wives, who from the seventeenth century, accompanied their menfolk to postings around the world. Katie Hickman, herself the daughter of a diplomat's wife, has written a lively, highly anecdotal account of the experiences of these women: their public and private lives, hardships and amazing experiences. The author has used first hand sources, such as letters, memoirs and diaries and organised the mass of material into thematic chapters, combining accounts from across the centuries. I found the earlier accounts the most interesting, as the women really were casting themselves into unknown territory. Often pregnant or mourning the death of children, they had to confront the ordeals of travelling to countries with customs and ways of life they knew little about beforehand. I was struck by the ability of these women to endure the physical and emotional hardships of their situation. Even the wives of later periods had often to confront physical danger . All the women were constrained by rigid protocol and there were clear expectations of their role as supporters of their husbands and upholders of British values. There were some rebels, but in most cases these women thrived on the novelty of moving from place to place and experiencing different cultures, and took on the supporting role with efficiency and cheerfulness.
Although the book is full of interest and marvellous characters, the anecdotal approach makes for rather disjointed reading. From one paragraph to the next the reader is jumping centuries and countries. It has left me with a desire to follow up some of the women's lives myself - which is perhaps a good thing.

[Ape · Rating 3 out of 5]

Light historical read on the institution of the British embassy wife - that will say women who were married to men employed by male embassy workers. These women were never employed or paid by the embassy, and yet simply because of the marriage, their lives were considered that of the embassy. (Hickman herself points out at the start that women who have worked in embassies are beyond the scope of this book, so they don't come in).Having read this, it's not a life I could have taken to.

This is a history book/biography of the role rather than individuals, and as Hickman's taking about three centuries worth of experiences from the globe, it won't come as a surprise to say people's experiences were very different. Although all the way through there is the emphasis that every waking moment is to the role and as they are representing Britain, they can't be themselves. In certain countries, there was a lot of pomp and ceremony with elitist types thinking themselves above the rest of the world (I wouldn't have been able to stand that), rules on how to dress, regardless of temperature, that a wife shouldn't speak up with opinions as this would reflect on the husband etc etc... These women made enormous sacrifices without being asked (they were told) and without being thanked. They were away from friends, family and their native land for years if not decades, often had their children sent away to boarding school, had to deal with famines, plague, revolts and revoltions, kidnappings and assinations.

As the book is focused on the role rather than individuals, it's split up thematically into various aspects (travelling to, private life, public life, setting up, children, dangers, husbands etc). During the book I sometimes wondered if I would have preferred it broken up in another way - perhaps per personal experiences (although I think she draws on the lives of too many women for this to have worked), or time period or even country or region of the world. But overall I think it was probably best as it is. Although this does mean I don't remember who experienced what and when in a lot of cases. Some figures stick out, and I'd actually like to read more about them, in particular Ann Fanshawe (swashbuckling heroinne of the early days of embassies), Isobel Burton, Elizabeth McNeill and perhaps the Tullys who were in Algeria during some dreadful plagues. Hickman herself is the daughter of a diplomatic couple, and she's lived all over the world with her parents, sadly including a posting to Ireland during the troubles so the ambassador at the time was assasinated whilst she was living there. This personal experience is included in the book and gives it another angle. There's a few photographs in the centre, including a sweet photo of her mother writing letters with the pet cat curled up asleep in the crook of her arm.

It was good although of Hickman's books I've read so far, I probably enjoyed the history book on Courtesans a bit more. Her fictional book The Aviary Gate is also worth a look.

[Kate Millin · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the daughter of a diplomat, Katie Hickman is well-situated to write about the lives of the women who, from the 17th century onward, have traversed the globe as partners of Britain's ambassadors. These women are more than simply bored socialites, they are indispensable companions, intrepid travellers and, in many cases, exemplary ambassadors for their country. Hickman details the lives of the female ambassadors, from flamboyant characters such as Vita Sackville-West, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the "bolter" Emma Hamilton, to lesser-known contemporary stoics like Jane-Ewart-Biggs, whose husband, the British Ambassador to Eire, was killed by an IRA car bomb in 1976, and Veronica Atkinson and family, who cowered in the basement of the British Embassy in Bucharest during the 1989 uprising that overthrew the Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceaucescu.
What frequently unites Hickman's wildly different subjects is their loneliness--drawing on letters, diaries and memoirs, she portrays women who had to discipline themselves to adapt (often ingeniously) to unfamiliar cultures, far away from friends and family--many, in particular, were separated from their children, who would be sequestered at boarding school back in Britain--while maintaining an unimpeachable public image. "I shall be obliged to travel three or four days between Buda and Essek without finding any house at all, through desert plains covered with snow, where the cold is so violent many have been killed by it", wrote Lady Mary Wortley Montagu of her treacherous journey to Constantinople in 1716. Almost 300 years later, in 1996, Stephanie Hopkinson wryly itemised the "bizarre qualifications" necessary for daily diplomatic life in a Sarajevo under siege: "Ability to ... apply make-up in the dark; aptitude for bathing in a cold teacup and keeping one's hair/self/clothes clean and uncrumpled as long as possible ... vivid imagination which converts tinned frankfurters, bread and rice into smoked salmon/steak and chips...".

I found this a fascinating read - it reminded me of stories my Grandma told me about when she was living in the East with her father who was a military policeman - including her mum finding a servant straining peas through a sock! She also liked curry having been kept quite by her Ayah letting her suck on a finger with curry paste under the nail!

[Veronica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this is a far cry from Katie Hickman's Travels With a Mexican Circus, one of the books I most enjoyed reading last year. This one reads rather like something commissioned by the British Foreign Office to hand out to diplomatic spouses so they know what they're letting themselves in for. It would work really well for that situation in fact.

As a daughter of diplomats herself, Hickman obviously finds the details fascinating, but I didn't, apart from a few amusing or scary anecdotes. I just couldn't get overwrought about well-off wives in some colonial outpost worrying about whether they had enough teacups. Yes, there was some genuine hardship. But mostly the endless triviality and socialising left me cold. And I felt that while the role of the diplomatic spouse does have some specific problems, many of the difficulties were no different from those faced by anyone sent off to live and work in a foreign culture.

My favourite characters were the intrepid Isobel Burton, teaching herself to shoot, fish, and ride astride so that she could go everywhere with her dashing husband Richard, Vita Sackville-West, who simply refused to be a dutiful spouse, and Lady Susan something-or-other, a Mitford-like character who wrecked her husband's diplomatic career by simply being her British upper-class self on a posting to the USA -- he had to take up pig-farming instead.

[Redfox5 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really struggled with the first half of this book. It's taken nearly a week to read becuase it just made me feel so sleepy and yawny. I usally finish books within 3 days! However this book does get a lot more intresting and readable after 'Social life' So best to stick with it. It makes it quiet hard at first becuase there are so many names and dates to remember. At the end of the book Katie Hickman asks the question 'Would you find this kind of life exciting?' I honestly don't think I would. I wouldn't want to have to deal with the pettyness of it all. Forever hosting dinner partys, changing location every couple of years etc. I think it would be horrible!

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a hard time actually getting into this book. It took me awhile to adjust to her way of writing. I kept thinking all through the first half of the book that I would have changed the organization completely! It was a bit random and jumpy without any flow.

However, once I got about halfway through, I really enjoyed it. There is a lot of interesting information and some horror stories that these poor women had to go through! I recommend this to anyone in the foreign line of work, as it makes you feel much more grateful! :)

[Persephone Abbott · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was both entertaining and tedious. However, I came away with an excellent insight into the lives and characters of people who submitted their lives to diplomacy (in sorts) while, in most cases, upholding a solid tradition of British domesticity. And it's the take on the word "domesticity" which comes across quite often as a type of stubborn martyrdom of which the British can be so proud and defensive.

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to learn what was expected of the wives of diplomats. Also, astonishing what these women endured and accomplished, often at a very young age. Lady Kathrine Macartney was only 20 years of when she accompanied her husband to Chinese Turkestan where she helped establish and maintain the British Embassy for 17 years.

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely reading about the perils and adventures of British diplomatic wives. Entertaining and instructive.

[Caro Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss Tully's Courage, Mrs Steel's Packing list
------------------------------------
A wonderful idea: take the letters and diaries of the wives (and some relatives) or English diplomats serving around he world to show how women contributed to the diplomatic mission, what they loved, what they hated, what it demanded, and how they bore it. The women's papers range from the 1600s to 1999 (when the book was written), and cover every continent.

The selections are well-chosen, nimbly jumping from, say, Madrid in the 1600s to Bolivia in the 1960s. The book is arranged by topics: public life, private life, Hardships, Children, and so on, and she has illuminating and often moving examples from her sources. A book of selections can sometimes be hard-going, but not this one. She lets an excerpt be the length it needs to make the writer's point, and as certain women repeated through the chapters, I was alert to them, feeling I was getting to know them better and better, as well as the actual life of a woman caught up in a life and in duties she perhaps had never anticipated, or wanted.

One reason I picked up the book was that she includes Mary Waddington, whose own memoirs I have read and enjoyed. Waddington is a little tangential, not being British, but I applauded the decision to quote her here and there.

What makes this book especially insightful is that the author grew up in British embassies in various countries. She has seen it from the inside. Certainly the chapter on children, who were often left in England or sent back there, for school or for safety, was often wrenching to read: the mothers bereft, the children wretched. There's a well-worn phrase that an ambassador is an honourable man sent abroad to lie for his country, but his service delivered often scarring experiences on his wife and children. On the other hand, some women thrived, fell in love with the countries they found themselves in, and felt they were exceptionally lucky.

The author does not excuse away or censor the language used by these women from the past, which I think she is right not to do so. We all know of the prejudices of the past as we know those of today. I just mention it in case the reader who takes me up on my recommendation is not familiar with those times and those customs.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

The level of detail and depiction of hardships were intriguing, but I only made it through half of the book. These women worked as hard as pastors' wives, and with as little support, but their goals in supporting their husband's vocation seemed rather insubstantial. The level of 'why' was missing in the narrative - why should the readers care that the wives had to put up with lack of servants, or the constant juggle of family life mixed with business, or the constant backbiting mixed with intrigue? What did all of this sacrifice accomplish? By the time I read through pages depicting the self-centered, condescending, and snide Vita Sackville-West and her politics-mad husband Harold, I wanted to re-read early chapters like 'The Posting' and 'Partners', with the much more uncomplaining and stalwart Mary Shiel and Ann Fanshawe. If the author's point was that diplomatic wives were exposed to immense hardships, merely for the sake of meaningless convention that required a great deal of effort and smooth speeches meaning nothing much, and an incredible outpouring of time in making visits to which there was no real purpose, then I think Katie Hickman made her point. What she perhaps forgot to include was a reason why her readers ought to labor through this meticulously detailed account of women and households posted in foreign lands.

[Katharine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book so it should probably be 3.5 stars but it was in some ways a little unsatisfying. The purpose of the book was to show the role played by the wives of British diplomats from the 17th century until the end of the 20th. These women were unpaid but expected to take a huge part in their husband's jobs. All of this was very interesting and we were introduced to some fascinating and often heroic women, most of whom could have been the subject of a book on their own. The problem I had was that the author chose to present the material thematically rather than chronologically to point out the similarities and differences across a 300 hundred year period. This didn't really work for me and I wonder if it might have been done chronologically, focusing on the story of a specific women from each period rather than the more scattergun approach the author adopted. An enjoyable read but might have been stronger.

[Clare Kirwan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This history of the role of (mostly) wives in the British diplomatic service over the last few hundred years is at once fascinating and tedious. There are incredible journeys, inspiring characters, hovels and harems, sorry tales of loneliness and loss, assassinations and endless interminable soirees.

There is much to enjoy, but I found the book frustrating. Chapters are 'organised' by theme and so move endlessly in time and space, with the same characters turning up all over the place, so you can't pin them down. And as the book is comprised mostly of long excerpts from various memoirs, this matters. This needed a lot more editing as the same points were made over and over - all those posh dinners were hell, they weren’t paid to do it, it was miserable and lonely in the back end of beyond, but they had to have the right frocks and say the right things.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but a little over-detailed and repetitive in places. Things seem to be either incredibly glamorous (Paris, Vienna, Washington) or very basic and dangerous (Sarajevo, Tehran) but what really seemed to be 'on repeat' was that the Foreign Office basically operated on a 'buy one get one free' basis for many centuries - the salaried man out on important official business while the lonely wife worked their socks off making the necessary connections and entertaining morning, noon and night with little to hand but a Baby Belling and a packet of dried biscuits. The chapter on 'Rebel Wives' should have been huge!

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy quite as much as the last Hickman book I read - her stories of travel with the circus but the topic is really jnteresting and separated into clear chapters which made it a good pick up and put down historical nonfiction read ! I often got lost between so many people being referenced without being set up exactly in place and time but really enjoyed the quotes from letters and the personal anecdotes added.

[Eldene Eyssell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really interesting anecdotes. However, I found the thematic organisation didn't work (leading to repetition and oh so many transitional paragraphs to compare and contrast). I would have preferred the material to be, for example, organised chronologically and/or according to countries, instead of jumping all over the place.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun and informative read. Even though this book is written from the point of view of the spouse, I recommend it for anyone considering foreign service or work abroad. There are lessons about representing a nation in a variety of environments and amazing stories. I laughed a lot as well.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating and entertaining read about the lives of British diplomatic wives from the seveneenth century onwards. It was most interesting to read about the Tullys quarantining themselves for 13 months as plague raged across Tripoli.

[Cameron Mcconnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tales of the wives of foreign service diplomats over roughly 500 years from the mid 500's. Some fairly dry details of protocol were balanced with tales of life during outbreaks of plague and revolution. Interesting saga of the life of unpaid companions to the British foreign service staff.

[Helga · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent years living overseas as a missionary so was fascinated by reading of others’ adventures in a different context. I used to envy diplomatic people, thinking “they have it made.” Not now - doesn’t sound like a life I would enjoy!

[Caroline Cassell · Rating 3 out of 5]

quite interesting but the book was divided into topics with the same characters appearing again and again. i would have preferred a narrative