British Diplomatic Oral History Programme

John Gray was born at Burry Port, Carmarthenshire [Wales] on 1 October 1936, the son of Myrddin Gray and Elsie Irene (née Jones), of Llanelli, Carmarthenshire. He was educated at Blundell's School, then Christ's College, Cambridge (MA; Scholar and Tancred Student), the Middle Eastern Centre, Oxford, and finally the American University in Cairo [Egypt]. In 1957 he married Anthoula, eldest daughter of Nicolas Yerasimou, of Nicosia, Cyprus; they had one son and two daughters.

After his National Service (1954-56), Gray joined the Foreign Service in 1962, and his diplomatic career included: MECAS [Middle East Centre of Arabic Studies] (1962); Bahrain Agency (1964); Foreign Office (1967); Geneva [Switzerland] (1970); Sofia [Bulgaria] (1974); Counsellor (Commercial), 1978, Counsellor and Head of Chancery, 1980, Jedda [Saudi Arabia]; Head of Maritime, Aviation and Environment Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (1982-85); Ambassador to Lebanon (1985-88); Ambassador and UK Permanent Representative to OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), Paris [France] (1988-92); Ambassador to Belgium (1992-96). After retiring from the diplomatic service, Gray served as Chairman of the OECD Information Policy Working Group (1980-82) and Rapporteur on the Study Team on Performance of OECD's Centre for Co-operation with European Economies in Transition (1994).

Sir John Gray died in October 2003.

Please note that the full version of this interview is closed, and will be reviewed by the FCO in 2014. An edited version is open to readers.

Online version available at http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/Gray.pdf