The Afghanistan File

Hugh Leach inspired me to travel. I followed in his footsteps to Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan.

He is described as an Arabist serving as a soldier and diplomat for thirty-six years but he was also gloriously eccentric. When he was posted to Cairo he set up a circus, an enthusiasm that never dimmed, joining the Board of the Circus Arts Academy after his retirement. He kept a penny farthing bicycle, a 1960s Land Rover and a Humber 9/20 Tourer built in 1926.

I’m surprised he hasn’t been mentioned here before. When I met him at a dinner party in Parsons Green he was rather late; most unusual. It transpired he had taken the wrong branch of the District Line – a man who knew his way round the Middle East like the back of his hand. He had been further delayed when a man with his child asked Hugh for directions in bad English. Hugh asked him to speak in his own language, Hugh identified him as Egyptian and talked to him in his Arab dialect to the man’s considerable surprise.

He had a serious side too. When he served in the Royal Tank Regiment his was amongst the first to land at Suez in 1956. He was reticent about his diplomatic career but relished telling of his travels, usually alone but one expedition was with Freya Stark to Yemen in the 1970s. This resulted in his book: Seen in the Yemen. Appropriately he knew HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal.

Prince Turki was a diplomat too, after being head of Saudi Intelligence for more than twenty years. He stepped back from that role just ten days before 9/11 and was subsequently Saudi ambassador to the UK and US. He had a distinguished audience yesterday: Sir Nicholas Soames, Sir John Jenkins (former British ambassador to Saudi), Jack Straw (former British Foreign Secretary) were present and Kevin Rudd (former Australian Prime Minister) was watching online. My ignorance prevents further name dropping but almost all the questions came from  Prince Turki’s friends.  I was charmed by HRH’s urbane performance. He spoke for twenty minutes and took questions for more than an hour.

He beguiled me. A more acute observer might have been frustrated that some tricky issues were not raised. It wasn’t the moment and would have been most disrespectful to such a distinguished Anglophile. At the end he told us that his children and grandchildren were present. The latter were being educated at universities and schools in the UK. Unfortunately one of his grandsons was not present as he couldn’t get Leave of Absence from Winchester. The Prince was educated at Georgetown University, Princeton, Cambridge and the University of London.