Paul Bergne: A personal tribute

By Monica Whitlock
BBC News

One of the greatest British authorities on Central Asia, Paul Bergne, has died after a career that took him from the Middle East to Afghanistan and beyond.

Bergne was a UK diplomat, but his judgement was independent

Diplomat, scholar and exceptional linguist, Paul Bergne knew the region from the inside, pursuing his countless interests and making even more friends.

There is a photograph of Paul setting out on the great adventure that was his life. It shows a young, bright-eyed student, arrived in Soviet Moscow for the International Youth Festival.

It was 1957, a time when hardly any foreigners ventured behind the Iron Curtain, and Paul's first glimpse of a world that fascinated him all his life.

Paul had a terrific time, and came home with a wealth of funny stories. He went on to speak excellent Russian - a rare achievement for someone who never lived in Russia.

Russia, though was only one of Paul's interests.

Great gifts

As a very young man, he also travelled to northern Iran as a cameraman, filming the curly-horned giant Marco Polo sheep. And he returned to Iran, after joining the Foreign Office, with his wife Suzanne and young family.

He learned to speak and write Persian beautifully in the swinging Tehran of the 1960s.

His next postings brought him deeper into the Muslim world - to Beirut, Abu Dhabi and Cairo.

A young Bergne on his first diplomatic appointment to Iran

Along the way Paul made an astonishing number of languages his own - Arabic, Persian, Russian, yes, but also French, Greek, German and Turkish.

Paul explored the languages of Central Asia, a part of the world absolutely off the Western map. He knew some Chinese and - I think - Sinhalese.

Along the way too, Paul found another of his great gifts, that of friendship. He made friends easily of any age or nationality - in a far-flung mountain village, or at a diplomatic party.

Everywhere people warmed to his enthusiasm, his kindness and his radiant interest in their lives.

When he picked up the phone, Paul spoke as though the caller was exactly the person he'd been hoping would ring. And it probably was.

He made everyone feel more cheerful; that life was full of possibilities, with wonderful jokes and adventures just about to happen.

Soviet Union collapse

In the early 1990s, the Soviet Union fell to pieces and the new states of Central Asia emerged, blinking from the wreckage.

UK Embassy in Uzbekistan - set up in a hotel room Bergne

Paul became the first British Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It was the perfect job.

Paul had long been studying anything he could find about this hidden corner of Asia - now he could put it all to use. Central Asia was untrodden ground, where people still stared to see foreigners in the street.

It was full of bizarre and fascinating stories tucked away, and rich ground for humour.

Paul set up the British embassy in a room of the grim Soviet hotel Uzbekistan, the haunt of gloomy spies and distressed Russian prostitutes.

He called London on a huge, heavy satellite phone sitting on his bed. Communication was minimal.

Special envoy

When Paul retired, his house in a Gloucestershire village became a home from home for all manner of Central Asians abroad.

He grew vegetables, made bread and enjoyed his grandchildren.

And continued to zip around Central Asia with as much energy as ever, returning to Tashkent as a freelance journalist for the BBC.

After the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001, British Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed Paul as his special envoy in Afghanistan, where he acted as intermediary between British forces and those of the mainly Persian-speaking anti-Taleban Northern Alliance.

Paul relished the trip. His sharp, analytical brain made sense of the politics of that time. And he loved too, the ancient beauty of Afghanistan, the landscapes and the holy shrines.

Paul worked for the British government. But his mind was his own, and his judgement independent.

In 2004, he and other former ambassadors signed a letter to Tony Blair expressing much concern over the intervention in Iraq.

Paul found the world a fabulous, absorbing place. And he used every ounce of his time in it.

"I have done most of the things I meant to do," he said, not long before he died.

Paul had meant to write his memoirs, but couldn't get beyond the age of 11.

He was too busy with his other things, like being with his family and brushing up his Italian.

He was also working on another book - The Birth of Tajikistan, about the coming to being of that little known country. It is due out in May.