‘The pay was good, you had a nice house and you met some interesting people.’ Thus the late John F. Kennedy on the US presidency. Something of the same could be said of an overseas British Council career a generation ago, it would appear, from these engaging memoirs by Stephen Alexander who held a succession of different overseas postings in three continents between 1946 and 1979, promoting British culture.
Life was great, with few demands and plenty of opportunity to indulge in travel, friendships and cultural pursuits. Stephen Alexander had his first extended taste of overseas life as a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp. Conditions became far better and his masters in the British Council were more benign, though there was often a huge cultural gulf between overseas and London staff. As in a POW camp, Alexander was cut off from the home country for months on end. When he retired the latest weapon of intrusive headquarters control was nothing more menacing than the telex. There was a good-humoured amateurishness in spreading Britishness, with little sense of accountability to taxpayer or anyone else. A British Council overseas officer felt no need to justify himself. When one distinguished overseas Representative was accused of a financial irregularity, he acknowledged to his accusers:
Of course I admit I am technically responsible. But is it surprising? I am not an accountant; I am a cultural representative. I cannot spend all my time scrutinising accounts. If that’s what you want Representatives to do you should make accountants Represent-atives and leave people like me to get on with education, language and the arts. And if you want me to refund money to you, that of course is not something I am qualified to argue about.
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