Alyson Bailes
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Alyson Bailes CMG |
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Bailes at the University of Iceland in 2013
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| British Ambassador to Finland | |
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In office November 2000 – June 2002 |
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| Preceded by | Gavin Hewitt |
| Succeeded by | Matthew Kirk |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Alyson Judith Kirtley Bailes 5 April 1949 |
| Died | 29 April 2016 (aged 67) |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Nationality | English |
| Political party | None |
| Education | The Belvedere Academy |
| Alma mater | Somerville College, Oxford |
Alyson Judith Kirtley Bailes CMG (6 April 1949 – 29 April 2016) was a British diplomat, political scientist, academic and polyglot.
The eldest of three children of Barbara (née Martin) and John-Lloyd Bailes, both of whom were teachers, Alyson Judith Kirtley Bailes was born and raised in Liverpool, where she attended the Belvedere Academy. She graduated from Somerville College, Oxford, in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree (First Class Honours) in Modern History and a Master of Arts in 1971.
Bailes joined the London Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1969 as a Desk Officer for the Western European Department and in 1970 received her first international posting as a Desk Officer at the British Embassy in Budapest. From 1974-76 she served as Second Secretary in the UK Delegation to NATO. In 1976, she worked in London in the European Community Department (Internal) at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She spoke and read French, Hungarian, German, Mandarin Chinese, Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish at what she herself described as “an operational level”. She also had reading knowledge of Danish, Icelandic, Faroese and Dutch.
In 1979 she served on a special mission as an assistant to the EC "Committee of Wise Men", appointed by the European Council to advise on institutional improvements in advance of Greek accession. In November 1979, Bailes was on loan to the Ministry of Defence as Head of Section in DS11, a civilian department dealing with defence outside the NATO area. In June 1981 she was posted to a job covering defence issues at the British Embassy in Bonn.
In 1984 she returned to London as Deputy Head of the Policy Planning Staff. From August 1987 to November 1989 she served at the British Embassy in Beijing as Deputy Head of Mission, Consul-General, and a member of the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group on the Future of Hong Kong. From January to July 1990 she took a sabbatical leave to research and write on relations between China and Central and Eastern Europe at Chatham House (the Royal Institute for International Affairs) in London.
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