A cool head in a crisis deep in the sweltering South

As Her Majesty's Consul General to America's Deep South, she was in the front line in dealing with the fall-out from the world's worst oil spill.

She admits when she needs to get away from her major preoccupation, her thoughts often return to her native Yorkshire.

Annabelle recalls vividly the days when she rode on horseback over the moorland hills surrounding her home city of Bradford, where she was born and brought up.

"Yorkshire is where I belong and that's where my roots are," says Our Woman in Atlanta, known locally as "Hotlanta", the often sweltering capital of the Southern US state of Georgia.

For someone who is still dealing with the diplomatic and economic repercussions of the BP oil disaster in America's Gulf states, she seems remarkably relaxed and composed.

She has just returned from a meeting with former American President Jimmy Carter and has spent two long days with the British Ambassador to the United States, who came to Atlanta to gain first-hand knowledge of the state of play.

It's been a pretty torrid time of late. But as she sits in her office, 34 skyscraper floors up in downtown Atlanta, Annabelle says: "There are plenty of challenges that are preoccupying us but when I need to relax, my thoughts often drift back to my childhood days in Yorkshire.

"I love the beauty and the feel of Yorkshire, especially the Dales, the open vistas, the rugged moors, it's vitally important to me and always will be. I don't feel happy in urban areas, and yet the irony is that that's where I spend a lot of my working time."

She has just celebrated her 54th birthday, alongside her husband James, an agricultural specialist, and their son Patrick, 16. Their eldest son Thomas, 23, is at university in Scotland .

It's been an eventful first year in her Deep South posting, looking after British interests in six big states which include the oil-affected Gulf States of Mississippi and Alabama, plus the two Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee.

Not only has she had the BP oil crisis to contend with, but as a diplomatic hors d'oeuvre, there was the Icelandic ash cloud and its dramatic effects on trans-Atlantic business and travel.

She readily accepts that the British image of the Deep South is still mired in the old Gone With The Wind Civil War era, despite the fact that collectively, South Eastern America has the sixth largest economy in the world, "that's on a par with the whole of Canada."

Annabelle describes modern-day Atlanta as an "exciting, dynamic and undiscovered jewel."

With her diplomatic and consulate hat firmly in place, she points out that British interests abound. The facts and figures trip

off her tongue as she points out that in Georgia alone, there are 350 British companies with a presence, creating more than 24,000 jobs, and with an investment of up to $2bn by British interests.

Being "Our Woman" in this big-hitting patch is all a long way from the day when her mother, Dinah Gresham, gave birth to her in St Luke's Maternity Hospital in the Little Horton area of Bradford. Annabelle then grew up during the 1950s and '60s in the family home on Keighley Road, near Manningham Park, her mother's parents handily living next door.

Her father, Lionel Gresham, son of a Bradford merchant who imported umbrella silk from the Far East, worked as an engineer, first in Bradford, then in Heckmondwyke. Her next- door grandfather, Harold Franklin, was a hospital radiologist, her grandmother Olive an artist, who went to Bradford School of Art. Her influence certainly rubbed off, with her daughters and grandchildren loving opera and ballet.

"It was just part of family life," says Annabelle. "Just because we were 'strange Northerners' didn't mean we didn't have, or enjoy, culture."

Annabelle's family moved on to live in Baildon, nearer to her beloved moors, and eventually to Nottingham.

She went to Durham University to read Botany and then to Reading University, where she studied Agriculture.

The young student was by now "determined to get involved in international food production to help stop famines."

She adds: "My idealism was there and still is. I'm determined to make the world a better place. I think I got a lot of inspiration from my Aunt Patricia, who was a consultant radiologist. She taught me about professionalism and making a career and an impact. She still lives in

Emm Lane, in the Heaton area of Bradford, and we all recently celebrated her 90th birthday. I see her as a great role model."

Annabelle herself is unusual in being a woman in what is seen traditionally and historically as a male-dominated world. She says things are changing but readily admits that her diplomatic role models are Madeleine Albright, the first woman to become a US Secretary of State, during President Bill Clinton's reign; Condoleezza Rice,

who rose similarly under George W Bush; and the present Secretary, Hillary Clinton.

"Albright is the stand-out one for me," says Annabelle. "A lot of women succeed by trying to forget they're a woman. She accepted fully that she was a woman in a man's world and went out of her way to make sure other women could succeed too."

Even so, women diplomats are still quite novel, although Annabelle adds, somewhat diplomatically: "Our government is committed to changing that. Today, one in five of our senior management team is a woman and we have grown from 17 women consulate heads out of 183 posts in

2006 to 23."

Annabelle joined the UK's diplomatic service in 1999. From 1999 to 2005 she

served in London as a First Secretary leading teams in global issues, geographic, and international organisations departments.

But getting back to the major task in hand, what of the BP crisis and its effect on British interests? Has the disastrous spillage of more than four million gallons of oil into American waters, combined with the poor PR handling of it and the aftermath of effects on the local economy, damaged British interests?

Her Majesty's Consul General says quietly but firmly: "I can honestly say that the answer is 'No.' It has been a human and environmental tragedy and our concern is to make sure BP lives up to its responsibilities and helps the long-term recovery. But I get no sense that British businesses have been hit.

"There is more understanding now about the big US interests in BP, which is 40 per cent American owned, and also that the financial links of Americans with the company's fortunes are great, for example pension investment.

"There has been no backlash against British business here. You have to remember that firms like Rentokil and Rolls Royce are household names in America. They have strong links and are part of the scenery."

In any case, Annabelle is used to dealing with major issues. In her previous posting, she facilitated the meeting between then Prime Minister Tony Blair and California's Governor Arnold Shwarzenegger over climate change and energy collaboration back in 2006, when she was based in San Francisco.

Then there was the Icelandic ash cloud, leading to hundreds of British

citizens being stranded at Atlanta's International Airport, the biggest passenger hub in the world. She says: "That came out of the blue, literally, but we dealt with it – and then we had BP. It's all part of the job."

BUILDING BRIDGES FOR BRITAIN

Annabelle Malins took up her appointment as Her Majesty's Consul General in September 2009. She leads a staff working throughout the South East on a wide range of issues, including support for British nationals, public diplomacy on the UK government's policy priorities, scientific co-operation, and trans-Atlantic trade and investment. Her previous position was as the Consul for Science and Innovation at the British Consulate-General in San Francisco. In addition to building UK-US bridges in all aspects of science and technology, she leads broad-ranging exchanges on climate change and energy issues.