The Siren Years: A Canadian Diplomat Abroad

Nora D.S. Robins is co-ordinator of Internal Collections at the
University of Calgary Libraries.

Charles Ritchie spent almost 40 years in the Department of External Affairs. He joined the Department in 1934, rising to assistant (later deputy) undersecretary, Ambassador to Germany, Ambassador to the UN, to the US, to NATO and the EEC, and finally, High Commissioner to London. Ritchie kept diaries for over 50 years, and the result is 4 fascinating volumes of excerpts — The Siren Years, An Appetite for Life, Diplomatic Passport, and Storm Signals.

The Siren Years begins in Washington in 1937 and ends in Ottawa in 1945 but it is primarily the record of the years spent in London during the Second World War when Ritchie was second secretary at the Canadian Legation and private secretary to Vincent Massey, then High Commissioner to London. These are not diplomatic diaries; official business has for the most part been deliberately excluded. They are the personal diaries of “an obscure and industrious junior diplomatic official who was thrown by chance and temperament into the company of a varied cast of characters who lived these years together in London in the stepped-up atmosphere of war with its cracking crises, its snatched pleasures, and its doldrums.” Ritchie’s account of daily life in London during the Blitz, weekends at country estates, and the not-too-onerous duties of a second secretary are pictures of a way of life that will never be seen again.

Ritchie is a gifted diarist who wields a witty, often acidic pen. His pencil sketches of politicians, socialites, and literary figures are delightful: Vincent Massey is “a curious and fascinating blend of acuteness and superficiality”; Sir Hubert Marler “looks like a painstakingly pompous studio portrait of himself painted to hang in a boardroom.”

Ritchie also recounts, discreetly and with a curious sense of detachment, his numerous love affairs. He was, after all, a sophisticated “diplomatic bachelor.”

First published in 1975, The Siren Years earned Ritchie the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction, and international recognition as a fine diarist. Ritchie writes with candour and youthful irreverence. This and succeeding volumes are not to be missed.