Never learn to type

by Margaret Joan Anstee

"As a young girl growing up in rural England in the 1930s and 40s Margaret Anstee dreamed of travelling to far away places. She succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. Refusing to accept the traditional confines imposed on her class and sex she fought her way first to Newnham College, Cambridge and then to the Foreign Office, where she worked with Donald Maclean, at the time when he was uncovered as a Russian spy. In the Philippines, in difficult personal circumstances in the 1950s, she accepted a job at the United Nations. It was the start of a career that was to take her to all corners of the world, to break many of the restrictions previously imposed on women and to be at the heart of world affairs for nearly fifty years. Perhaps most importantly it was an opportunity to work tirelessly against the effects of war and poverty, a battle that she has never abandoned." "The story of Margaret Anstee's life is one that includes many of the major events and figures of the twentieth century, f