BDOHP Biographical Details and Interview Index BUIST, John Latto Farquharson (Ian) (1930-2012) CB 1990 Career (with, on right, relevant pages in interview) Early life and entry to Colonial Office pp 2-4 Asst Principal, Colonial Office (E Africa department), 1952–54 pp 4-23 Seconded Kenya Government, 1954–56 pp 23-46 Principal, Colonial Office, (E Africa department), 1956–61 pp 46-62 Department of Technical Co-operation, 1961–62 pp 62-64 British High Commission, Dar-es-Salaam, 1962–64 pp 64-74 Consultant on Administration, East African Common Services pp 74-87 Organisation/Community, 1964–69 Secretary, Commission on East African Co-operation and pp 78-86 related bodies, 1966–69 Assistant Secretary, Ministry of Overseas Development, 1966–73 pp 87-92 Head of South Asia Department, Ministry of Overseas pp 92-97 Development, 1973-76 Under Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Overseas pp 97-127 Development Administration), 1976–90 Also includes note by Buist: “The Fight for Equality in the pp 130-136 British Civil Service”, on equal rights for homosexual staff within the Civil and Diplomatic Services. 1 JOHN LATTO FARQUHARSON (IAN) BUIST, CB interviewed by Malcolm McBain on Tuesday 8 April 2008 at 9 West Hill Road, London SW18 1LH Education and family background MM: Ian, could we start by your telling us something about your education and your family, and how you came to join the Colonial Office? IB: Before we begin, I’d like to say that what you will hear is history as I remember it. Memory is notoriously unreliable, and I do find that, as I get older, names and dates, and sometimes events in which I took a part, escape me. So this will not be a professionally composed account, with everything cross-checked and source- quoted. But I hope I will be able to give you and others the feel of what so much of it was like, seen often from the inside. But getting back to family, my father was an Army doctor. He and my mother both came from Dundee. My grandfather Buist was a brilliant mathematician, physician and obstetrician, but he subscribed to every rebel cause that he could. He was an early socialist, an atheist, a vegetarian, a eugenicist, and a promoter of Dundee’s now heavily-used crematorium. My father, I think, reacted against this a bit and was more orthodox. He had the family talent for minute detail, not least when making things with his hands, and was full of kind and quiet wit. My mother’s father, however, was a well-known chartered accountant, and auditor to the great Alliance Trust and its fellows, which embodied the very active talents of Dundee’s investors, especially in enterprises in the USA. My mother inherited many of these gifts; she was, I think the first woman president of the Students Representative Council at St. Andrews, and got J.M. Barrie elected as Lord Rector, for which he gave a remarkable address on “Courage”. Today, I think, she would have been a businesswoman in her own right; but in those days it was a matter of bringing up a family of four. I am the second of the four children. I was lucky enough to win a scholarship to Winchester from my small prep school near Edinburgh during the War, so I spent five years there, 1943 to 1948, and went on subsequently to New College, Oxford, with a closed scholarship. 2 The advantage of that was that you knew what the competition was; the disadvantage was that there were about three times as many exam papers to do! I was at New College from 1948 to 1952 and I read Classics, Greats – effectively Ancient History, Philosophy and Greek and Latin literature, which I found very useful in later life. Philosophy (especially linguistics) sharpened my insight into all reasoning; without history, we have no perspective on the problems of our age; the Greek and Roman worlds comprised a complete picture of a different – but not so different – civilisation. I was then faced with the question of what to do. I was fortunate enough to get a congratulatory First and I thought, “Well, should I go in for the academic role?” And I applied for a job at Glasgow University in the Department of Humanities; however, after I got there, and had more or less been dragooned into accepting it, I thought on the train coming back that that was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and I decided then and there that I wanted to see the real world. So I went in for the Civil Service Exam. That would be in 1952. I was again very fortunate. There were two methods for entry, as you probably remember. One was Method A, which was a kind of test of your general civility, urbanity, ability to get on socially with everybody, and included three compulsory papers. The other was Method B, which involved a far wider range of optional written papers plus the other three compulsory ones. That’s the method I chose; I knew I’d never survive the house party test. I was fortunate enough to come top of the list, so I got my choice of department. People said to me, “Oh! You must go to the Treasury. That’s where everything happens. That’s what’s so important.” I said, “No, I want to go to the Colonial Office,” because I thought that, throughout history, people should be judged according to the way in which they carried out their responsibilities for others. It seemed to me that this was exactly the function of the Colonial Office, and, besides, I was an enthusiast for Joseph Conrad. So everything pointed in that direction, and I was given my choice. Recruitment to the Colonial Office as an Assistant Principal, 1952 I joined the Colonial Office on 17 November 1952, after a rather long wait. 3 MM: Did you not have to do National Service? IB: Yes, I did have to do National Service. I was called up at eighteen in 1948. They tested my sight beforehand and I went down from Winchester to the outskirts of Southampton to the address given me, and tapped on the door. A very old specialist came to the door, who worked for the Ministry of Labour. His lenses were about three inches thick, and he declared me to be fit for service. But the Army never accepted any of those tests automatically, so when I was in they retested me, and decided that my eyesight was too poor. So I was thrown out after two weeks’ basic training, which, however, was very interesting, and I got the minimum of ten days’ leave; plus, panic stations, how to obtain a place at New College at the very last moment. I was lucky because, because of the huge bulge of returning ex-servicemen after the War, they had built a large number of prefabs within the College, and there were only two places left, and I got the last one. The other one went to somebody who had been thrown out because he had a hammer toe or something like that. So I had a touch of National Service, but not the real thing. The saved time was quite valuable because, of course, the Greats course lasts four years instead of the usual three for a degree. MM: Very good. Thank you. So you joined the Colonial Office as an Assistant Principal in 1952 and what did you do there? IB: Before speaking about that I would like to say a bit about the Office as I found it. Life in the Office There was an extraordinary mix of formal manners and informal camaraderie. Playing safe, on Day 1 I addressed everyone as “Sir” till my Review Clerk kindly drew me aside and explained that this wasn’t necessary. There was a great sense of a vital common purpose. You knew that those at the top would look after you and make active plans for your career - no need, as in these worse times, to have to apply 4 for vacancies. There were social organisations like the C.O. Sports Club, the Chess Club and the C.O. Choir in which all rank was set aside. In this last I regularly found myself sharing the bass line with Sir Hilton Poynton, no.2 in the hierarchy, as we grappled with Acis and Galatea or The Revenge. At the Coronation our choir and the Treasury Singers, under Robert Armstrong, together performed William Harris’s Praise the Lord in Westminster Hall. One duty that regularly came round was that of Resident Clerk, which meant spending all “off” hours for a week ensconced in the tiny rooms at the top of Church House, and dealing with any emergencies. People would bring files up before they went home, with an indication of possible problems and whom to contact if they arose. Quite often this meant waking the Secretary of State. Telegraph and security staff were also on duty 24 hours a day. It fell to me once to be in post during the week before we were going to declare an Emergency in British Guyana and to remove its Prime Minister, Cheddi Jagan, and his communist wife Janet. We could not do this till the necessary “gunboat” had arrived to quell any possible disturbances. The Press had got wind of naval movements and constantly rang me and my colleagues at the Ministry of Defence and the C.R.O.