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Simon Atkinson

Deputy Head of Mission, Cape Town

Part of UK in South Africa

10th July 2012 Cape Town, South Africa

Celebrating UK sport and royalty in South Africa

I last blogged from Windhoek, Namibia, where I was covering for our High Commissioner Marianne Young. I’m now back on my more usual perch as Deputy Consul General, Cape Town. I thought I’d update you on what we’ve been doing in Cape Town recently to promote the UK and the GREAT campaign. (It’s no secret that promotion of the UK in all spheres, whether commercial, cultural or political, is pretty central to what we do overseas!)

Right Royal Celebrations

We hosted two receptions that literally exploded the Jubilee in Cape Town. From top of the stunning cliffs overlooking Hout Bay harbour, we saluted her Majesty by firing two salvos of six cannons from the oldest working battery of guns in the world. We fired more cannons, and lit a beacon, at a public event at the famous V&A waterfront. A flotilla of Royal Cape Yacht Club boats sailed past the beacon and the Cape Town Highlanders performed for the public. Quite a sight!


London 2012 – holding the torch

Like other posts overseas we have also marked significant days in the countdown to the Games, including:

  • hosting key contacts at the ‘Table of Peace & Unity’ held on Table Mountain – an annual event, attracting more than 700 people (including the Cape Town Mayor), organised in aid of abused Children. The Consul General’s presentation focused on the Olympic Truce, as well as London’s Olympic and Paralympics Games and The Diamond Jubilee.
  • hosting an event with young English Premier League players and FA supported NGO ‘Coaching for Hope’ which gave us an opportunity to highlight 100 days to go to the Paralympics. Amongst the guests: South African football legends Aaron Mo-Kwena and Edwin Stein. The best part of the evening (my speech aside!) – a quick game of football between the premier league players and members of local Blind and Cerebral Palsy Teams.


In other news ….

We’re deepening our cooperation with the Cape Town police, following a week of sharing best practise on CCTV coverage (not to everybody’s taste I know, but an important element of crime fighting in the city). A colleague and I recently joined the police for a patrol of some of the worst crime-affected parts of Cape Town. An eye-opening experience, and one of importance –  we do need to find a way of getting out of our ivory tower (or in our case, the 15th floor of an office block) as much as possible, if we ever hope to better understand, and translate, the place in which we live.

Expect more from me in around a month’s time…

About Simon Atkinson

Simon Atkinson was born and spent the first 9 years of his life in New Zealand, before his family moved to the less leafy suburbs of Wallington, South London. After…

Simon Atkinson was born and spent the first 9 years of his life in New Zealand, before his family moved to the less leafy suburbs of Wallington, South London. After university at Leeds and 4 years teaching English and working for NGOs in Europe and South America, Simon joined the UK Foreign Office. His first overseas posting was in India, where he was a political officer covering issues like counter-proliferation and the relationship between India and its neighbours. He was also the Commonwealth Games Attaché during Delhi’s 2010 Games.

Cape Town is his second and current posting. His role here is dual hatted – as Deputy Consul General, he supports the Consul General manage the office, and as the Head of the Political Team, he covers the whole gambit of South African policy (though being based in Cape Town means this is heavily focused on domestic policies and Parliament).

Simon is married to Gina, who also works for the Foreign Office. They enjoy being in South Africa, as both a fascinating country to cover politically and wonderful place to live, allowing them to pursue their passion for the outdoors and perfect their ability to ‘braai’ (not that they’re under any illusion about how often they’ll get to demonstrate this skill once they return to the UK)!

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