ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores diplomatic Service families and the mobile lives of their children begins in 1939 with an account of the attempts by one diplomatic grandee to exclude members of the Consular Service, the ‘Cinderella Service’ from diplomatic circles, by opposing a suggested amalgamation of the two Services. It describes the status-conscious 1980s and demonstrated that diplomats retained the sense of belonging to a prestigious social group well into that period. The book describes the Committee on Representational Services Overseas, ‘the Plowden Report’. It explores an internal lobbying for a third ‘concessionary’ journey to enable children to travel to and from overseas posts and the granting of many of these demands might point to significant internal change. The book deals with the increased level of threat suffered by Diplomatic Service families overseas, demonstrates that this resistance to change could put families in danger.
