My husband, Derek Milton, who has died aged 85, was a diplomat whose Foreign Office postings took him to New York, Rome, Caracas, Mexico City and finally to the Caribbean, where, before retirement, he was high commissioner to Jamaica. While carrying out that role he was also ambassador to Haiti, in a non-residential capacity. Derek was born in Edgware, north-west London, to Francis, a clerk with the North Thames Gas, Light & Coke Company, and his wife, Florence (nee Kirby). He suffered badly from asthma as a child and missed a lot of schooling, but nevertheless passed the 11-plus to go to Preston Manor county grammar school and then progressed to the University of Manchester, where he graduated with a degree in politics and modern history. After national service in the RAF he joined the Colonial Office, where, among other jobs, he was assistant private secretary to Duncan Sandys, the commonwealth and colonial secretary. In 1964 the responsibilities of the Colonial Office were absorbed into the Commonwealth Relations Office, which, in 1968, merged with the Foreign Office to become the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). In 1967 Derek became first secretary (economic and social affairs) at the UK Mission to the UN in New York, and five years later was appointed first secretary (internal political) at the British embassy in Rome, where I was working and where we first met. In 1978, by which time we were married, Derek was promoted to the post of counsellor (political/economic) in Venezuela. Then, after a two-year period back home at the Overseas Inspectorate of the FCO, he became a minister/counsellor at the embassy in Mexico City in 1984. He combined the roles of high commissioner to Jamaica and ambassador to Haiti from 1989 to 1995, after which he retired. He was made a companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1990. In retirement Derek studied Polish language and literature at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. He had hoped to get a posting to Warsaw in 1977 but was thwarted by a tit-for-tat visa spat with Poland, after which, his studies having led to a love of Polish film and culture, he vowed to continue them at a later date. Fortunately, visas were subsequently granted and many happy visits to Poland ensued. He had a love of travel – particularly, but not exclusively, to eastern Europe – and eventually fulfilled his ambition of visiting all 28 capitals of the European Union before the UK left the EU at the end of 2020. A supporter of Middlesex county cricket club and Queens Park Rangers football club (his father first took him to a match in 1947), he was happy on one occasion to take Michael Manley, the former prime minister of Jamaica, to a game at Loftus Road. Manley had studied at the LSE in postwar Britain, and had become a QPR fan at that time, so they shared common interests. He is survived by me, our two sons, Mark and Robin, and four grandchildren.