Brigid Keenan

The funny truth about life as a diplomat’s wife

Being a 'trailing spouse' brings highs, lows – and a unique kind of comedy

  • From Spectator Life
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In the early 2000s my husband, a diplomat for the EU, was posted to Kazakhstan, a vast empty steppeland next to Siberia. It was winter and the place was covered with thick snow. My family were in England, my husband was mostly in the office; I was 61 and I didn’t know a soul.

Our previous posting had been to Damascus and I had occupied myself by writing a book about the old palaces there, but here there were no old buildings as the Kazakhs had been nomads. I had nothing to do. Everyone spoke Russian – I didn’t. As my husband was a senior diplomat we qualified for a cook, but she and I could only communicate using animal noises: chicken was cluck-cluck, beef was moo and lamb was baa. The main foods available seemed to be cabbage, onion and potatoes. The computer didn’t work. I was miserable and homesick, and our posting was for four years.

Then a sort of miracle happened. My husband took me to an official party to say goodbye to the Papal Nuncio in Almaty (at that time the capital of the country), and there I met another diplomatic wife. Cecilia, who was married to the Romanian ambassador, turned out to be even more miserable than I was. She was a doctor and couldn’t practice because she wasn’t qualified in Kazakhstan. ‘Tell me,’ she said after we had been talking for a minute or two. ‘Should I leave my husband now and go back to my job at home? You are old and have been doing this for years… is it worth it?’ I was going to laugh off her question, but suddenly I realised it was one I needed to ask of myself: is it worth it?

Guests at a dinner party in Kazakhstan ate my flower arrangement, and in the Gambia my husband’s flip flops were nailed to a tree

I had already thought of writing a book about our travels, and had got as far as sorting out a very disorganised diary I had kept over the years.

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