Wilfred Thesiger A Life in Pictures

Sir Wilfred Thesiger was born in 1910 at the original British Legation - a collection of wattle-and-daub tukuls - in Addis Ababa, and spent his early years in Abyssinia. He was educated at Eton and Oxford and at the age of 20 attended the coronation of HIM Haile Selassie at the emperor's personal invitation. Three years later he made his first expedition into the country of the murderous Danakil tribe. He joined the Sudan political service in 1935 and served in the War in Abyssinia and the Middle East with Special Operations Executive and the Special Air Service under David Stirling.