From the first exploratory expeditions into foreign lands, through the heyday of the British Empire and still at the end of the millennium, the foreign service has been shaped and run behind the scenes by the wives of ambassadors and minor civil servants. Accompanying their spouses in the most extraordinary, tough, sometimes terrifying circumstances, they have struggled to bring their civilization with them. Their stories - from ambassadresses downwards - are a feast of eccentricity, genuine hardship and genuine heroism.