At a time when an educated woman was expected to join the teaching profession, my aunt, Anne Stoddart, who has died aged 78, succeeded in her application to the Foreign Office and began work with the British military government in Berlin in 1960. Much amusement was derived from her receipt of an invitation to an induction there with its request for her to select a room-mate from the list of other successful candidates. They were all men.
By 1963 she was appointed third secretary in Berlin, and in 1964 she was awarded the position of second secretary, remaining in the city until promotion took her to Ankara, Turkey, in 1970. Anne was an independent woman who drove across Turkey at a time when the sight of a lone female driver was highly unusual.
However, it was her posting to Colombo, Sri Lanka, as head of chancery that allowed Anne to move into the level of diplomacy at which she excelled. Who better to engage with the country’s prime minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, one of the modern world’s first female heads of government?
In 1977 Anne returned to Europe as the UK’s permanent representative to the Council of Europe and in 1996 was appointed a CMG – Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George for her work as deputy permanent representative (economic affairs) at the UK mission to the United Nations in Geneva, her final post.
Anne was the daughter of Ann (nee Inglis) and James Stoddart, an art teacher. She attended Kirby grammar school, Middlesbrough, and then became one of the eight female undergraduates admitted to study modern languages at Somerville College, Oxford, in 1956. Only Anne and one other girl came from a state school.
She sang in choirs wherever she lived and was devoted to the London Chorus and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, for which she found more time once retired. She was also an active supporter of the Liberal Democrats.
Her humour and her recollections about her career were a great part of her charm, although she was always discreet. The greater opportunities for the younger women who came after her are her legacy.
Anne is survived by her brother, Robert, me, and by her great-nieces Severen and Kepsibel.
