CTCEDUSERVE

Few have done more to promote Anglo-Egyptian relations in the last 35 years than Hassan Khalifa, who has died aged 60. A senior member of the British Council’s Egyptian staff, he was an administrator, a scholar with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Egypt, a businessman, and a friend and counsellor to a succession of ambassadors.

Born in Alexandria, Hassan came from a family with deep roots in Egypt’s ancien regime, yet he had unrivalled contacts in modern Egypt. His father was a lawyer, his grandfather a pasha. He was educated at Victoria College, a replication of an English public school that contributed to the formation of King Hussein of Jordan, Omar Sharif and Edward Said. The institution perfected Hassan’s English, and fostered a love of Britain. He took an MA in English at Ain Shams University and, in his 30s, worked on an external PhD in international economics from Bradford University.

He joined the British Council in the mid-1960s as librarian, but relations between Egypt and Britain were broken off in 1967 after the six-day war. British staff were withdrawn, leaving Hassan as custodian of the council premises, and its assets, temporarily housed in what had once been Lord Kitchener’s ballroom.After the restoration of relations, Hassan became a close friend of council representatives, especially the scholarly Norman Daniel, who acknowledged Hassan’s influence in his works on Islam and the west.

Hassan’s contacts with official Cairo made him instrumental in the council acquiring its present magnificent premises on the west bank of the Nile. He was last there two months ago, when Tessa Jowell opened the knowledge and learning centre. He also carried on supervising examinations, including GCEs taken by the then President Sadat’s wife, Jehan. Once, sitting in a corridor, he had to explain to Sadat that he was from the British Council. “Thank God for that,” said the president. “I thought you were one of those awful Palestinians from the BBC.”

In 1977, Hassan set up his own Cairo Trade Centre, dealing with publishing, bookshops and the promotion of British books. In his last few months, he was working on a programme of translating and publishing African literature for Arab readers.