After service in
HM Forces from 1953 to 1955, he spent a short time living in Paris, before returning to the UK to work as a French and English teacher at
Wilson's Grammar School in Camberwell, London, from 1967 to 1970, where he will be remembered. He joined the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1970. Two years later, he was posted as
First Secretary (Commercial) to
Moscow. He was appointed
Counsellor and
Head of Chancery UKDEL,
MBFR Vienna in 1975. He was appointed Head of Defence Department FCO in 1979, becoming Assistant Under-Secretary of State in 1981. David Gillmore was appointed
High Commissioner in
Malaysia in 1983. Gillmore was appointed
Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office in 1991, ==Family==