banner


Slung Out of Our Own Embassy

Evening Standard — Letter Thursday 22 September 1983

By Christopher Long

See Main Index

See Print Journalism Index

Slung out - of our own embassy

I totally sympathise with Mr Cotton who was so poorly treated by British Embassy staff in Paris. I have had the same sort of treatment on two occasions.

The first was when I called in to tell them that I had seen a young English girl arrested on the Pont St Michel by armed police controlling a demonstration.

I had noticed her earlier watching the disturbance as any tourist might. The staff at the reception desk were not the slightest bit interested that a British citizen had been roughed-up at gunpoint and thrown into a van.

The second occasion was about five years later in 1981 when I rang and then visited the embassy to ask permission to see personal letters and documents belonging to my family from the days when they had played a vital role in organising and operating escape routes for allied airmen and escaped prisoners in Marseilles and Southern France. These documents were given to the British Embassy for safe-keeping at the end of the war.

My request was greeted with such contempt and irritation by the receptionist and by a senior member of staff that I was too ashamed to tell my French cousins that I had been slung out of the Embassy which was once regarded by Frenchmen as the last bastion of hope and democracy, freedom and compassion.

Christopher Long, Earls Court Square, Earls Court.

See Main Index

See Print Journalism Index

© (1983) Christopher Long. Copyright, Syndication & All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
The text and graphical content of this and linked documents are the copyright of their author and or creator and site designer, Christopher Long, unless otherwise stated. No publication, reproduction or exploitation of this material may be made in any form prior to clear written agreement of terms with the author or his agents.

Christopher Long

Home Career Press Print Radio TV & Film 3rd Party Trivia Projects Personal Etcetera Sound Images Index