A life less ordinary, Dame Margaret Anstee has spent her illustrious career at the heart of international affairs, rising through the ranks of the United Nations to become the first woman to take on the role of Under Secretary-General, venturing into war zones, revolutions and catastrophes the world over.

She has been described as “redoubtable”, a woman for whom England was always a size too small. But then Dame Margaret’s diplomatic and peacekeeping missions took her to more than 130 countries during a 41-year career with the United Nations, at times fraught with danger. When she addresses an audience in Herefordshire later this month, Dame Margaret will have a strong message for women in particular.

“I try to encourage women that the sky really is the limit,” she says. At 89 she still keeps a finger on the international pulse from home at Knill. “I came from a modest background and with a mixture of luck and very hard work, I’ve had an interesting and adventurous life.”

There’ll be a flavour of that extraordinary life when Dame Margaret presents ‘A Survivor’s Tale’ at St Thomas a Becket Church, Huntington on Saturday September 19 at 7.30pm. As she explains; “I survived nearly half a century in the UN, and I survived physical threats too.”

Though retired, work continues for Dame Margaret. She is joining other former UN staff in a series of ‘Witness Seminars’, their collective experiences aimed at helping future UN development work. Even after retirement, she has taken part in military training exercises all over the world, and she keeps a weather eye on current affairs. Right now, she is writing an article for the Financial Times about her beloved Bolivia, the country which captured her heart.

Dame Margaret is also tickled at a feature devoted to her in a new magazine – in Welsh. She already speaks six languages, and is now embarking on weekly tutorials in Welsh. Dame Margaret admits it is proving tricky.

“I consider myself a linguist, but Welsh is so unlike any other language!”

Her maternal grandmother hailed from Radnorshire, and Dame Margaret recalls happy childhood visits to her at Gorsty Doles in Titley. Later she read French and Spanish at Newnham College, Cambridge, entering the Foreign Office in 1948. Assigned to the South American Department, she was shocked to find that women diplomats were never sent to Latin America, in case they suffered a fate worse than death at the hands of “a passionate Latino”. Her pioneering spirit was unleashed.

At the UN she rose through the ranks to become first woman Under Secretary-General. In 1992 she was the Secretary General’s Special Representative to Angola, the first woman to head a UN peacekeeping mission. She worked in economic and social development around the world, served as Director General of the United Nations in Vienna, and was head of all United Nations narcotic drug-control programmes. When the new Secretary-General, Boutros-Ghali, asked her to head a peacekeeping mission as Special Representative for Angola, where civil war had raged for years, she agreed. With an imminent election, she was tasked with overseeing the electoral campaign, and bringing together President Dos Santos and rebel leader, Dr Savimbi. Her stay proved the “most traumatic and heart-rending” of her life.

Dr Savimbi’s attitude towards her turned menacing. He called her “an international prostitute, a smuggler of diamonds and mercury”. A “stray bullet would find her,” he warned.

“It was a dangerous time, there was no security and my life was threatened,” says Dame Margaret. She was also anxious that her beloved aunt, Christina, listening to the BBC World Service at home in Knill, would hear her niece described in this manner. She need not have worried. “Darling,” came her aunt’s response. “I don’t mind so much about your morals, (though a prostitute would be a first in the family), but do be careful of that stray bullet!”