Jeremy Varcoe CMG

Jeremy Richard Lovering Grosvenor Varcoe CMG has followed a career remarkable for both its geographical reach and its variety. A lawyer by training, he went on to serve Britain overseas during a period of considerable political change, particularly in Africa.

His diplomatic career took him to Swaziland, Turkey, Zambia and Malaysia and brought him into contact with some of the important international and political questions of the period. Among the most historically interesting episodes was his involvement with the Pearce Commission in Rhodesia, established to determine whether proposals for a political settlement under Ian Smith's government were acceptable to the population. Varcoe was involved in preparations for the Commission and worked closely with Lord Pearce during its work.

He later became Head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Southern African Department, served as British Ambassador to Somalia, and subsequently as Minister in Nigeria. His career also encompassed work connected with the London G7 Summit and later involvement in Croatia. Away from conventional diplomacy, he worked with Standard Chartered Bank and became involved with the international United World Colleges movement.

Another substantial chapter followed when Varcoe became an Immigration Judge, serving from 1995 until 2007. It was an unusually varied professional life spanning law, diplomacy, international affairs, banking, education and the judiciary.

In Master of None, Varcoe looks back on these experiences with considerable understatement and humour. The memoir originally grew from requests by members of his family to record his recollections, rather than from an intention to produce a grand account of diplomatic history. Yet the resulting book provides something more unusual: the personal observations of a man who repeatedly found himself close to significant events and personalities in Britain's post-war international relations.

The title reflects Varcoe's own description of himself through the Cornish expression “Cousin Jack of all trades, master of none” - an appropriately self-effacing description of a life that, in reality, encompassed an exceptional range of experience.