Brooks Richards

He was born in Southampton on 18 July 1918, the son of an engineer, and educated at Stowe School and Magdalene College, Cambridge where he gained first-class honours in history in 1939.

Brooks Richards always denied that Bonnier de la Chapelle, who moved in Royalist circles, was working for SOE.

In May 1943, after the liberation of Tunis, Commander Brooks Richards was head of F section in Algiers, directing SOE agents parachuted into enemy territory or landed at night on the beaches.

In Autumn 1944 he served in the staff of Duff Cooper, minister-resident charged with re-opening the British embassy in Paris, and in 1945 he became a reservist in the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR).

From 1944 to 1948 he was a press attaché in Paris, and in 1954 he began a diplomatic career, starting as first secretary and head of the administration in the Persian Gulf, a post he held until 1957.