ABSTRACT
Neil Kinnock, in an introduction to a history of the organization, wrote that 'put simply the British Council exists to build trust between the UK and other countries and people and thereby make lifelong friends for Britain'. In his autobiography, Yesterday Came Suddenly, the novelist Francis King, who served under Roger Hinks in Athens, stated that he spent 'more than seven years in Athens' working for the British Council, 'three more than the usual British Council period of duty'. In his diary, Hinks offered a different reason for wanting to move Francis King, one that was more for the Council's sake, not King's. As the situation in Cyprus worsened, the work of the Council diminished –certainly there was no further need for teachers at the British Institute when in 1956 it was, in Hinks's words, 'dead and just about to be buried'.
