Our November speaker Nick Stanley was the British Naval Attaché and Assistant Defence Attaché in Paris between 2010 and 2013. On his wife’s insistence he turned down promotion to Commodore to take up the posting as a Captain and, although he spoke mediocre French at the time, he attended a crash course at the MoD Defence School of Languages before taking up the position.
The British Embassy in Paris is on the rue du Faubourg St Honoré, just two doors down from Nicolas Sarközy’s official residence and Captain Stanley met the President on several occasions. Much of his work involved liaising with the French Military and Navy, often finding that they didn’t get on with each other!
However, although fiercely independent as a nation the French frequently saw the British as their closest ally and were not beyond attempting to involve the UK’s support in their various military missions in The Ivory Coast and Mali.
Nick soon found that the diplomatic side of his post involved a never-ending round of cocktail parties, sometimes as many as three in one evening, as it was important to get to know his French contacts and counterparts rather than just communicate with them by email.
In addition to his military and social duties, Nick was also expected to be the British presence at war commemorations, which the French take very seriously. Nick also showed photographs of himself with his German counterpart (with whom he developed a close bond) at such ceremonies. He noticed that there appeared to be a ‘European NATO Elite’ involving Britain, Germany and France. Nick always had to remember that Britain enjoyed a ‘special relationship’ with the US, and on occasions, he was obliged to be very diplomatic with his French contacts in order not to jeopardise the relationship with America.
As a special treat we were entertained by Rob Elliott and Ken Gillam, who form the shanty duo Jigsaw from the Royal Naval Benevolent Trust.
They performed a vocal version of the Mike Oldfield hit Portsmouth with imaginative lyrics in praise of the city and then two other locally inspired songs: The Weatherman and Sea of Blue. David Baynes was delighted to hand over a cheque and complimented Rob on his artwork for their CD cover.
Please see our Events page for future attractions.