Goldster Conversations: Inside Story with Humphrey

Juliet Campbell was the first of Britain’s pioneering female ambassadors -- ‘An inspiration for those with ambition to make a difference in the world’, says diplomat, Karen Pierce, Britain’s current ambassador to the United States. In Playing Britannia Juliet tells her story through letters and diaries she kept at the time. Besieged in a chateau with the Queen, looping the loop in a jet and meeting top Chinese Generals in the Great Hall of the People became everyday stuff for Juliet, who rose to be Ambassador to Luxembourg and went on to be appointed Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge. From joining the Foreign Office in 1957, when only a handful of women served on its 1100 staff, Juliet rose through the ranks working in Brussels, Bangkok, Paris and Jakarta as well as stints at the heart of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. Her career spanned almost exactly the years of the Cold War, working as the Berlin Wall was built and as it came down. In the Asian megacities of Thailand and Indonesia she witnessed the unfolding of the region in the aftermath of the Vietnam war and the beginning of the rise of China. Join Humphrey Hawksley with Juliet for this fascinating Goldster Conversation of her career as a woman in a man’s world working at the heart of Britain’s foreign policy. Goldster Inside Story Friday January 19th 2024.