Philip Louis Victor Mallet, CMG [1926-2011]

[Michael Rhodes]

_Philip Louis Victor Mallet, CMG, who died 1 December, 2011, aged 85, was born in 1926 a son of Sir Victor Alexander Louis Mallet, GCMG [1893-1969] by his wife the former Christina Andreae, & was a grandson of Sir Bernard Mallet, KCB [1859-1932]  by his wife the former Hon Marie Constance Adeane [ d 1934] scion of that landed family and descended from the Yorke Earls of Hardwicke; married 1953, Mary Moyle Grenfell Borlase, by whom he had issue. James, Stephen and Victor. Funeral Service to be held at St John the Baptist Church, Wittersham on Friday 9th December 2011 at 12 noon. 

-==-

[Richard R]

The late Mr Mallet was head of the gentry family of that name of
Wittersham House. His eldest son James Louis Borlase MALLET (b 1955)
succeeds his father as head of the family. He m 1983 Sandra D dau of
Edward A KNAPP of Los Alamos, New Mexico. They had two sons (Alfred
Wallace Borlase b 1987 and Victor Louis b 1990) and a dau (Isabel Jean
b 1989).

The late Mr Mallet's sister, Anne Marie (b 1929) is the widow of His
Honour the 28th Baron DUNBOYNE VRD (1917-2004), and mother of the
present 29th Baron (b 1951), who is m with an ha (b 1983, unm).

On Dec 5, 5:14 am, Michael Rhodes <mig73allenford2...@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

[Richard R]

Quite a nice Telegraph obit but no mention of his gentry family
status. He had a charmed life and avoided death on more than one
occasion!:

E X T R A C T:
Philip Mallet, who has died aged 85, served as a British diplomat in
Middle Eastern hot spots from Iraq to Aden during his 35-year career,
but would have scoffed at the idea that he led a dangerous life.
...It was purely by chance that the phlegmatic Mallet – an Arabist who
also spoke French, German and Swedish and spent his spare time
conducting meticulous research into birds, plants and insects in
obscure jungles and deserts – missed a fatal Saudi diplomatic
reception in Khartoum in 1973. At the party, three of his American and
Belgian colleagues were taken hostage and then executed by the
Palestinian Black September terrorist group. George Curtis Moore, the
American deputy chief of mission, who was one of the victims, was a
family friend as well as a diplomatic colleague. Two years earlier,
while chargé d'affaires in Sudan, Mallet had experienced at first hand
a Communist coup d'état against Gaafar Nimeiri, and the subsequent
counter-coup by Nimeiri, during which Mallet's youngest son was on a
Khartoum-bound British aircraft hijacked by the Libyan regime of
Muammar Gaddafi and forced to land in Benghazi. (Two coup leaders, who
were on the plane, were seized, sent to Sudan and later executed,
while the rest of the passengers eventually returned safely to
London). Even in the relative safety of Sweden, Mallet witnessed, in
1975, an attack on the West German embassy opposite the British
chancery, when Baader-Meinhof extremists took 11 hostages. Four
people, including two West German diplomats shot by the militants,
were killed. The building was blown up. Then there was the ever-
present threat of the IRA, particularly after Mallet became head of
the Foreign Office's Republic of Ireland department in 1977.
Philip Louis Victor Mallet was born on February 3 1926 and educated at
Winchester. Having served in the Army at the end of the Second World
War, mainly in Italy, he went up to Balliol College, Oxford.
... Diplomacy was a family tradition – his father was Sir Victor
Mallet, known by Evelyn Waugh as "Sexy Mallet", who was ambassador in
Stockholm during the war, and later in Madrid and Rome. Between 1950
and 1982 Philip Mallet's foreign postings included Baghdad, Tunis,
Cyprus, Aden, and Bonn as well as Khartoum and Georgetown.
Mallet impressed everyone with his absolute integrity, but his
disarmingly self-deprecating sense of humour did his diplomatic career
no favours. He found himself particularly in need of this good humour
on one occasion when an especially high-handed minute from Dr David
Owen's private office landed on his desk.
The Foreign Office tradition had been that notes from the Foreign
Secretary's Private Secretaries were models of periphrastic
circumlocution: "The Secretary of State was grateful for your advice,
but wonders whether it would be possible to examine an alternative."
But not under Dr Owen. The minute to Mallet read, rather brutally,
something like: "The Foreign Secretary has seen your minute, but did
not like this advice at all."
In a rather sardonic way, Mallet saw the funny side of it all. After
the Ireland department, his final posting would be as High
Commissioner to Guyana. He used to complain that his main contribution
there had been to redraft the post's fire drill, and joke about orders
to "vary his route to work" in case of an IRA assassination attempt,
which meant deciding which side of the tree to walk on when crossing
the road between residence and embassy.
Appointed CMG in 1980, he retired early after his Guyana posting to
run the family apple farm in Kent and became an expert on the natural
history of the area.
Philip Mallet married, in 1953, Mary Moyle Grenfell Borlase, who
survives him with their three sons.
Philip Mallet, born February 3 1926, died December 1 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/8973914/Philip-Mallet.html