A diplomat who lived life in the moment
In a personal tribute, ‘Telegraph’ columnist Nick Timothy reflects on the achievements of his old friend Sir Christopher Meyer
Each generation is doomed to believe its leaders, stars and high-fliers cannot possibly live up to the great figures of the past. The angst is often unfounded, but in the case of Sir Christopher Meyer, who died on Wednesday, today’s diplomats have reason to feel it. For we do not make them like Christopher anymore.
The magical thing about Christopher was the combination of wisdom – the product of his sharp intelligence and decades of experience in diplomacy and public life – and the exuberance of youth, something he never lost. Christopher was not content to spend his retirement telling stories of years gone by. He was fascinated by the problems of today and tomorrow, eagerly devouring the details of global problems and working out what might be done – always with the national interest in mind – to fix them.
After voting Remain in the 2016 referendum, Christopher accepted the result immediately and was baffled by the behaviour of the diplomats past and present who bemoaned the decision. “What are they complaining about?” he would ask with genuine incredulity. “This is the challenge of their careers. They should be excited!” After his positivity caused intakes of breath and tut-tutting at a foreign policy conference held after Brexit, he told friends, “they seem to think we’re as important as bloody Paraguay!”
Patriotic in an unembarrassed and urbane way, a belief in Britain and the need to pursue the national interest guided Christopher throughout his career. A life in diplomacy that took him to Moscow and Madrid during the Cold War and to Bonn and Washington as ambassador first to Germany and then to the United States gave him an international status. But in a service famed for “going native”, he never forgot whom he served or the international prestige and power of Britain. “If there is one phrase in this world I cannot stand,” he used to say, “it is when we say we need to ‘punch above our weight’. We are far weightier than we think.”
A belief in Britain and pursuing the national interest guided him throughout his career
If this makes him sound like somebody who believed the glass was always half-full, that is indeed what he was, and the glass in question was usually half-full of champagne. Evenings with Christopher were filled with laughter: never afraid to laugh at himself, he expected the same of his friends, and teased us without mercy. His impromptu speech at my wedding brought the house down. Those who met him only once knew enough of him to know they adored him.
One person he adored was his wife, Catherine. Half-french, half-russian and entirely besotted by him, Catherine was Christopher’s soulmate. The two not only loved one another until the end, they were always very much and very visibly in love. “Ambo”, as she called him and “Lilo”, as he called her, never tired of the other’s company. A dinner with one was a dinner with both, and to watch them laughing and sparring and teasing together was to understand that true love really does endure.
Sadly, the love of Catherine’s life was born of tragedy. She met Christopher, in 1997, while he was ambassador in Germany. Catherine had custody of her two sons, but their father, a German national, refused to allow them to return to Britain after a holiday with him. German courts sided with the father, and Catherine was denied access to the boys. As part of her fight to see them, which went through the British and German courts as well as political and diplomatic channels, Catherine met Christopher. Despite their best efforts, Catherine would not see Alexander and Constantin until they reached adulthood.
After a whirlwind romance, Christopher and Catherine married the day before they flew to America, where Christopher was to take on the British Embassy. From Washington, they campaigned together to reunite Catherine with her boys, and against the surprisingly common problem of parental abduction. Catherine co-founded the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and then established her own organisation, Parents and Children Together, which later became known as Action Against Abduction. Catherine was made a member of the House of Lords in recognition of her work.
Christopher’s time in Washington, which ran for six years from 1997, making him the longest-serving British ambassador there since the War, was among the most tumultuous in American history. Following a close personal relationship between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, in 2000 George W Bush defeated Al Gore, and Downing Street needed to start a new relationship with a White House team with whom it believed it had little in common. Christopher, who with Catherine had made an invitation to the British Embassy the hottest ticket in town, did the job. Christopher was the first to warn Blair that Bush might beat Gore, and he built relations with the new top team. Even before the election, Condoleezza Rice was his tennis partner.
After 9/11, and in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, Christopher found himself in the midst of controversy about the decision to go to war. After a series of rows with Downing Street, which often sought to control the relationship with the White House directly, cutting out the Embassy, and briefing against Christopher in London, he left his posting in 2003. His memoirs, published two years later, prompted a violent reaction from senior figures in the Blair government. Candid though the memoirs were, Christopher was vindicated in his criticism – principally that Blair gave Bush a blank cheque for the invasion – in the Chilcot Report which was published in 2016.
After leaving Washington, Christopher and Catherine were as busy as ever. Catherine was, at last, reunited with Alexander and Constantin. They spent more time with Christopher’s sons, James and William. But the work went on. For six years Christopher served as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, and he joined the board of Arbuthnot Bank. Following his memoirs, two more books came: Getting Our Way, about the art of diplomacy, and Only Child, about the father he never knew.
In 1944, 13 days before Christopher was born, his father was shot down in action over the Greek island of Icaria. In 2011, he visited the site of the crash and met the surviving witnesses. No doubt the book and the visit to Icaria were cathartic experiences, but they seemed more important to Christopher as history projects, an attempt to learn about his own family story rather than an introspective act of psychotherapy. For while Christopher was modern and original and curious and creative, he was also a stoical member of the old school with little time for navel-gazing.
On he went with life, and on he went as a proud father and step-father himself. Even in 2018, when he was the victim of an unprovoked and random but very violent attack at Victoria Station in London, which left him in hospital for days, his spirits were undimmed. The fun, the laughter, the kindness, the love, the anecdotes, the teasing humour, the wisdom and the exuberance were all still there, and they lasted all the way until his final moments. For those of us lucky enough to call ourselves his friends, it was impossible not to love and admire him.