Peter Albert Raftery, former British High Commissioner to Botswana, died on June 10th aged 67. He was born on June 8th, 1929.
Peter Raftery was one of few to enter the British Diplomatic Service without a degree and to achieve the position of head of mission. Well known for his geniality and relaxed attitude, he was probably the antithesis of preconceived notions of a British diplomat. These characteristics, his ability to make friends readily and cut across the divides between individuals and cultures, proved to be an invaluable asset to a diplomat whose career reflects Britain's transition from an imperial power to a member state of the European Union.
He was born of Irish parents in Liverpool in 1929 his father being a former officer of the Royal Irish Constabulary. At a very early age he was sent for health reasons to live with his Gaelic speaking grandparents near Galway. By the time he returned to Britain, he was an Irish bhoy, from head to toe.
The Jesuit educational system in Britain reshaped him, and when he matriculated from St Ignatius College in London he was British in every way except for his Irish temperament. His first job as a junior clerk at the Bank of England came to an abrupt halt when he pulled the wrong lever, sending several hundred pounds worth of small change cascading across the floor and leaving customers knee deep in petty cash.
After a spell of national service in the parachute regiment, serving in Northern Ireland and occupied, Germany he joined the British High Commission in India, arriving in Bombay on the very day that India, in the throes of communal troubles and a war with Pakistan over Kashmir, became a republic. This was to sat a pattern, for his, career, as each successive posting placed him in the next spot on the world political map from which the colour pink was slowly ebbing away. It also made him a witnes to some of the more disturbing aspects of political self definition as well as to some of the great physical achievements of the period, one of the most memorable being the conquest of Everest in 1953.
His arrival at his next overseas posting, Peshawar, on the north west frontier of Pakistan was marked by mass demonstrations over Suez and Pakistan's first military coup. Years later, whenever in London he was to delight many Indian newsagents as he bought his paper by chatting to them in Urdu, which he spoke fluently.
During successive postings to Cape Town, Kuala Lumpur, Bahrain, London, Botswana and Jordan, he gained a reputation for deploying his soft key Irish charm in, tricky situations. Raftery's first posting to Botswana in 1976 began a love affair with the country and its people which he was delighted to renew as High, Commissioner in 1986, and which culminated in his choice to retire and finally to die there.
To the south east of Gaborone he built a unique wooden home, braised above the bush, with uninterrupted views of the veldt and the distant hills. Daily visited by kudu and yellow billed hornbills and nightly sometimes by leopard, he, could maintain radio contact with his youngest daughter Barney, who operates a specialised safari business in the Okavango Delta, and entertain the many friends who, braved the rough roads to enjoy his Irish hospitality and fine sense of the ridiculous.
In a fitting meld of cultures, he was cremated by the Botswana Hindu Society after a funeral at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Gaborone. His first wife Margaret died in 1983, He is survived by his widow Fenella and all four daughters, from his first, marriage. A memorial service will be held later this year in London.