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426 lines
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news
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obituaries
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military-obituaries
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special-forces-obituaries
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7521245
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-----
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# Baroness Park of Monmouth
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## Baroness Park of Monmouth, who died on March 24 aged 88, was one of
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Britain's most remarkable spies; her distinguished career in the Secret
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Intelligence Service (SIS) culminated in her appointment as Controller Western
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Hemisphere in 1975, the highest post ever occupied by a woman; she retired
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early from SIS in 1979, having been elected Principal of Somerville College,
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Oxford, where she remained until 1989.
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7:05PM GMT 25 Mar 2010
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[Comments][1]
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When Daphne Park was revealed as the face of British Intelligence by
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_Panorama_ in 1993, many were surprised to find that the James Bond of the
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public imagination bore a greater resemblance to Miss Marple: a woman whose
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genial, maiden aunt exterior belied a doughty, pugnacious character. Her drink
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of choice was Earl Grey tea, "stirred not shaken", as she put it.
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![Baroness Park][2]
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But as one of the first women to do a fully operational job throughout her SIS
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career, Daphne Park demonstrated that a woman could be an immensely competent
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officer on the ground. Extracting information in the middle of an African
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jungle or burning top secret documents (and then hiding the ashes in her
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knickers) were simply part of the job. Though she once talked her way out of
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being lynched by a mob, she did not dream of carrying a gun.
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Nor was she treated as an honorary man. Though formidable, she was quite
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capable of using her femininity to her advantage. During her time as consul-
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general in Hanoi in 1969, the confidential talks she enjoyed with the Soviet
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ambassador owed something of their success to his chauvinistic attitudes
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towards women. She was, however, realistic about her capacity to conduct
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"honeytrap" operations, noting: "Do I look like Mata Hari?"
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As a woman who listed "difficult places" as a recreation in _Who's Who_,
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Daphne Park made something of a career out of some of the world's worst
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trouble spots, and her thirst for adventure drove her to turn down safer and
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more financially rewarding jobs early on in her career.
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She was posted to the Belgian Congo in 1959, where the subsequent granting of
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independence produced one of the principal crises of the Cold War years. Here,
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Daphne Park dealt with the inevitable death threats and lawlessness of society
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with habitual sangfroid. On one occasion, when living alone, she chased off an
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intruder by leaning out of her window and shouting: "I am a witch! And if you
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don't instantly go away your hands and feet will fall off!"
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One of her greatest strengths was her ability to attract and win over the most
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influential people, her natural ebullience and charm providing her own best
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cover. In Africa, she succeeded in forging strong friendships with local
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leaders despite their instinctive political dislike and fear of the colonial
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powers. On arriving in the Belgian Congo, she insisted on being housed alone
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on the commuter route into town while other Europeans cowered in a safeguarded
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quarter. Before long, she was entertaining Africans with early morning
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tumblers of whisky on her veranda, and by the time independence came, she knew
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the prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, and half his cabinet.
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Her acts of courage reaped rich rewards. She once smuggled Lumumba's private
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secretary to safety in the boot of her little Citroen 2CV. "[The car] was
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excellent cover," she said. "Nobody ever takes 2CVs seriously. But that's not
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why I had it - if they'd let me loose in anything bigger I'd have been lethal.
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My director once told me the bravest thing he'd ever done in his life was to
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be driven round by me." Lumumba's secretary subsequently became head of the
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Intelligence Service in the new government, and one of the most useful sources
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in Daphne Park's career.
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On another occasion she was driving a Land Rover when she saw a machete-
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wielding mob coming towards her. She jumped out, stuck her head under the
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bonnet and told her potential attackers: "Thank goodness you've come along - I
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think I have a problem with my carburettor." The men laid down their weapons
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and offered their assistance.
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"I always looked just like a fat missionary, which was very useful," she said
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in later life. "Missionaries get around, you know."
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Daphne Margaret Sybil Desiree Park was born in Surrey on September 1 1921. Her
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father, John Alexander Park, had contracted tuberculosis as a young man and
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been sent to Africa on a "cure". Settling there, he moved from South Africa to
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what was then Nyasaland, where he became an intelligence officer in the First
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World War, worked as a tobacco farmer and then moved to Tanganyika as an
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alluvial gold prospector. Six months after her birth, Daphne travelled to
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Africa with her mother, Doreen, to join him there.
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The family home was a mud hut without running water or electricity. Daphne
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pegged her first gold claim aged three, finding a single nugget which she then
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lost. She had no formal education until the age of 11, when she walked three
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days to the nearest road and hitched a lorry ride "through a cloud of locusts"
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to Dar es Salaam.
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There she "switched on my first electric light and pulled my first loo chain"
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and sailed back to England to attend the Rosa Bassett school in Streatham. She
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would never again see her brother, David, who died aged 14. As for her
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parents, it would be another 15 years before she laid eyes on them.
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Her unconventional upbringing had shielded her from British prejudices, and
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she never felt disadvantaged by her gender or her lack of money. Determined to
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be a diplomat, she convinced her county council to create a special
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scholarship enabling her to take up her place to read French at Somerville
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College, Oxford. But on graduating in 1943, she turned down jobs in the
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Treasury and the Foreign Office to make a direct contribution to the war
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effort.
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Daphne Park was summoned for interview at FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry -
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which had evolved to undertake unconventional tasks among the Services). There
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she was vetted for her usefulness in encryption but became the first person
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ever to fail the final examination, by providing an over-elaborate response to
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a question about ciphers. Fortunately, her paper found its way to the head of
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coding at the Special Operations Unit, who put her on his staff. It was the
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beginning, as she admitted, of her "very interesting war".
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After a period instructing a range of agents in the use of codes, Daphne Park
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was promoted to the rank of sergeant and sent to Milton Hall in
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Leicestershire, where she helped to train the Jedburghs, special teams formed
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to support the Resistance in Europe. She was, however, sacked for
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insubordination after she told a senior officer he was incompetent, and in
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1945 went to work as a briefing and dispatching officer in North Africa.
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Daphne Park's wartime activities in SOE left her deeply compromised in Europe
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and disqualified her from entry into the Service. Instead, bitterly
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disappointed, and still a FANY officer, she was sent to Vienna in 1946 to set
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up an office for FIAT (Field Intelligence Agency Technical), directing the
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search for Axis scientists who had been involved in interesting projects
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during the war and were wanted for interview by the British. Her assistance to
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SIS secured her an interview back in London. She was duly offered a job and
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entered the Service in July 1948, the time of the Berlin airlift.
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Her work in Vienna strongly influenced her career. The kidnapping of
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scientists by the Soviets in the postwar years and the disappearance of Poles
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and Czechs she had trained during the war made Daphne Park determined to
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discover more about the communist regime. After two years in London, she went
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to Cambridge to learn Russian, and in 1954 - after a two-year stint in Paris
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working undercover as part of the UK delegation to Nato - she was appointed
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second secretary at the Moscow embassy.
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Daphne Park arrived in the Soviet Union in the immediate aftermath of the
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Korean War. Stalin had died the previous year, Beria had been shot and the
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Bulganin-Khrushchev thaw was beginning. The Soviet Union was opening up, and
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she travelled widely, reporting on all aspects of Soviet life. Once, during
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the Suez crisis, when Britain was under attack at the UN, demonstrators
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swarmed angrily up to the British embassy. As the riot unfolded, the embassy's
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military and naval attaches, in full uniform, approached a Russian officer who
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was observing the destruction. They saluted him and said: "The ambassador
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would be obliged to know when this demonstration will end, as he is having
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guests for luncheon." According to Daphne Park, the reply came: "This
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spontaneous demonstration of the people's wrath will end at a quarter to one
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precisely."
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Her tradecraft was impeccable. SIS had taken on the case of a Russian spy in
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Canada who had been turned by the Canadians but then recalled to the Soviet
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Union. There were fears that he had been compromised, and he was instructed to
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appear, alone, in a particular Moscow street at a particular time carrying a
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shopping bag in his left hand. Daphne Park was sent to the rendezvous. When he
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arrived with the bag in his right hand, and in the company of a woman, she
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correctly surmised that he was indicating that he had indeed been compromised.
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In September 1969, following her postings to the Congo and to Zambia (in
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1964), Daphne Park was appointed Consul-General in Hanoi, listed as "the worst
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mission in the world" by inspectors in 1956. "It was an uncomfortable life,
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and extremely unhealthy," she said. "My house was full of rats."
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Daphne Park's attempts to get to know the Vietnamese were constantly
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frustrated: she was refused a language teacher and even a bicycle. She did,
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however, establish informal relationships with the Provisional Revolutionary
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Government representative in North Vietnam (although the PRG was not
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officially recognised by the British) and the Soviet Ambassador, and obtained
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important information about the political climate and psychology of the
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Vietnamese.
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Daphne Park always felt, contrary to popular opinion, that defeat and the
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subsequent spread of communism through Indo-China could have been avoided had
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American troops held out. "The writing might have been on the walls in the
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South, but it was on the North Vietnamese walls too. If the Americans hadn't
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succumbed to the tremendous pressure at home, history might have been
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different."
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Her final foreign posting, as charge d'affaires to Outer Mongolia, was in
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1972. She spent the rest of her career in London.
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In 1979, retiring two years early from the Service, Daphne Park was elected
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Principal of Somerville College, where she was known to students as "Daffers".
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Although she had emerged unscathed from some extremely tricky diplomatic
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situations, she had more difficulty coming to terms with Oxford's procedural
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codes, and the burden of her responsibilities was increased by a sudden
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deterioration in her mother's health.
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Though some were critical of her early performance as Principal, she made an
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enormous contribution to the college. In spite of her age, she was aware of
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the world her undergraduates faced and worked tirelessly to forge links
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between Somerville and the world of industry, garnering subsidised
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lectureships and fellowships.
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She set up the Open Evening for Industry for second-year undergraduates,
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providing them with information about careers and useful contacts. She
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identified the need for extra funding and launched the Somerville Appeal in
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1983. She was appointed Pro Vice-Chancellor of Oxford in 1985.
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Her enthusiasm for each project infected those around her, and her
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encouragement and generosity were unstinting. Her former secretary recalls
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Daphne Park dispatching her housekeeper on more than one occasion with a
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Thermos of soup to comfort some ailing don.
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Nor were her commitments limited to the university. She was a BBC governor
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between 1982 and 1987 under the then Director-General, Alasdair Milne, who
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identified her as a hardline opponent in his memoirs. Always outspoken, Daphne
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Park argued that the BBC should be run more efficiently, and she made a strong
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stand against the controversial _Real Lives_ documentary about the IRA and
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Loyalist extremists.
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Among her many other post-SIS activities, she was chairman of the Legal Aid
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Advisory Committee to the Lord Chancellor between 1985 and 1991 and a member
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of the British Library Board from 1983 to 1989.
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She was appointed OBE in 1960 for her protection of British subjects in time
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of danger in the Congo, and appointed CMG in 1971 for her service in Hanoi.
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In 1990 she was created a Life Peer. In the House of Lords - which she toured
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in a motorised wheelchair - she became a firm friend of another formidable
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Cold War spy, Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale. In her working life, Lady Park
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said, she had "abhorred Communism", calling it "a wicked, evil regime. It
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rests on terror."
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She contrasted the threat of communism of her day with the new dangers posed
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by Islamic extremists: "There is quite a difference between our government
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saying: 'We wish to know in advance the undeclared intention of government X'
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and 'We want to know that next week somebody like the Shoe Bomber is going to
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pop up'. To this end, she defended proposals to increase the period in which
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terrorist suspects could be held without charge from 28 to 42 days, saying:
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"The nature of the threat has become far more complex."
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She admitted that, during her career as an agent, she had been terrified on
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several occasions. "There are frightening moments and there are moments when
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you should have been frightened but weren't," she said. "I do not have
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courage, but I do have a mixture of curiosity and optimism." Despite the awful
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sights to which she had been witness, Daphne Park continued to display that
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optimism in her final years. "This is a marvellous world," she said. "I wish I
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could go on and on."
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Daphne Park never married: "I had four or five love affairs, like most people
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- but only one that really mattered, and that ended in death, unfortunately."
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Albrighton, Shrewsbury, passed away peacefully on 26th May 2011. Funeral
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description = "James Edward of Langstone, Hants, died peacefully at home 22nd
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May 2011 aged 91. Enquiries to Lee Fletcher Funeral Services 02392 384455";
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