My name is Stephen Wordsworth. I was born in 1955 in Port Talbot, an industrial town in South Wales. From an early age I wanted to travel to different parts of the world, which explains why I ended up studying Modern Languages (German and Russian) at Cambridge before joining the Foreign Office in 1977. In my career I have been posted in Moscow twice - 1979-1981 under Brezhnev during the 'Cold War' and most recently 2003-05, in Putin's time. In between I have been in Lagos (1983-1986, when that was the capital of Nigeria) and Bonn (1990-1994, when that was the capital of Germany). I also worked from 1994-1998 as a Political Adviser in the NATO European military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, dealing mostly with the launch of the NATO-led mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, IFOR/SFOR.
In London I have done a range of jobs. One of the most memorable was as Head of the Section dealing with our relations with what was then the GDR and all of Berlin under the old 'Four Power' post-war regime, from 1988-1990. This covered the period when the Berlin Wall came down (November 1989) and the two parts of Germany came back together. More recently I was Head of the Department responsible for the UK's relations with the Western Balkan region from 1998-2002, taking over just after the Kosovo conflict. During that period I worked closely with others to prevent/resolve conflicts in Macedonia and in the south of Serbia.
My wife, Nichole, was also a member of the British Diplomatic Service. We met in Moscow in 1980, when she came there for six months to do a temporary job, and she continued to work in London and then in Lagos. Our son, Richard, was born in 1987, and is now studying Philosophy in London.