bout de papier, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2011) — Winter/Spring 2011 // Hiver/Printemps 2011, p. 32
Derek was born in 1929 at Beuthen, Upper Silesia, then part of Germany, now of Poland. His father, Ivan Arnould, was a British diplomat and his mother, Irene de Grodska, was of Polish nobility. His parents separated early and Derek and his mother moved to Berlin. He took his primary schooling at Welbury, Hertfordshire, England while his mother continued to live in Germany. In 1938 she moved to England and in 1940 they came to Canada and settled in Ottawa. His secondary schooling was taken at Ashbury College and Lisgar Collegiate, Ottawa.
Following graduation from Queen’s University in 1949, Derek joined the Canadian Navy reaching the rank of Lieutenant by 1955. In that year he joined the Department of External Affairs. His first posting was to the United Nations mission, New York, in 1956 followed by the Embassy in Prague, the High Commission in Accra, and the Delegation to NATO, Brussels. In 1974 he went to the Embassy in Peking as deputy head of mission, then to the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Royal College of Defence Studies, London. From 1978 to 1981 he was with the NATO Secretariat. In 1984 he was appointed High Commissioner to Tanzania with accreditation to Mauritius, the Seychelles and Madagascar. Derek’s last posting was as Senior Deputy Commandant of the NATO Defence College, Rome.
He retired in July 1991 and settled in Brussels with his second wife Irene van Lynden who died in 1999. He remained in Brussels until February 2010 when he returned to Canada. He was living in a retirement residence in Burnaby, B.C. when he died on November 21, 2010. Derek is survived by two sons and a daughter from his first marriage to Pamela Wickett and two grandsons.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2011) — Winter/Spring 2011 // Hiver/Printemps 2011, p. 32. Read the rest of this issue →
