40s and 50s Memories
other countries, a change I never regretted.
What opened up for me was a working life
in different parts of the world. My overseas
postings were to Spain, France, Mexico,
Belgium and Poland. Once posted back to the
United Kingdom, I made numerous short visits
to other countries and regions, including China,
South Korea, Argentina, West Africa and other
European centres.
Visit to Mexico by Princess Alexandra and husband
Angus Ogilvy in November 1984
Thanks to all this travel, I was able to acquire
fluency in Spanish and French, but not alas!
Polish, which proved too difficult a challenge.
The job satisfaction derived essentially from the
people I met and the places I saw, but also from
the fact that it entailed the setting up of a variety
of new, and I hope successful, collaborations
and events over the years. My family and I
lived in Franco's Spain, in Mexico at the time
of economic collapse and the Falklands War
further south, and in a Poland emerging from
40 years of communist/ Russian domination.
While we were in Mexico, the British Council
co-sponsored the second largest exhibition of
the works of Henry Moore ever to leave the
United Kingdom. This was opened by the
Mexican President. I was also lucky enough to
have met the Queen on three occasions, once
in Buckingham Palace (an OBE presentation),
and twice in Mexico on her visit there in 1984.
Visit by Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, to Paris in
October 1976 to open the new British Council Offices
Retirement in 1994 might have proved
somewhat sedentary by comparison with our
former life but with a married son with four
children in New Zealand and a married daughter
with two in France we had no excuse not to keep
travelling. Our other son is married with three
children rather nearer home - an hour's car
journey. Most of all I have had the benefit of a
loving and supportive wife, Anne throughout my
career to whom I am grateful beyond measure;
her death in 2007 was without doubt the worst
event in my life. Without her and three wonderful
children life would have been very different and
undoubtedly much the poorer.
C. BULLOCH
Bishop Fox 1956
Colin Bulloch left King's in 1956, his school
time having been spent in Bishop Fox House
with George W. Morgan as Housemaster.
He became House Prefect and his sporting
activities included shooting, in which he became
Captain, and fives, in which he was Keeper.
G. W. Morgan encouraged him in his chemistry
interest, and this together with a bent for
Biology, prepared him for a life in the medical
profession.
Of his life after King's he writes:
After qualifying to go to London University in
1957, I enrolled at Charing Cross Hospital in the
Strand, London, where I qualified as MBBS in
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