n 1960 an unfortunate "incident" occurred when a British warship arrived on a ceremonial visit to a foreign country and its band struck up with the wrong national anthem. Anxious to avoid any similar faux pas in future, the Foreign Office wrote to British embassies in all the countries that were likely to be visited, to check that the Royal Navy had the correct music for each of them.

The story was recalled last night in a BBC radio programme about British diplomatic dispatches – and the art of writing them. Over the years, some diplomats have gone to extraordinary lengths to make them witty, and the best examples of this obscure literary genre have been widely circulated in Whitehall.

The 1960 mix-up over national anthems led to the writing of one dispatch which is still regarded as a classic of the genre. It came from John Phillips, and British Consul General in Oman, and was addressed to Lord Home, the Foreign Secretary at the time. It can be heard about 12 minutes 20 seconds into the programme:

My Lord, I have the honour to refer to your Lordship's dispatch No 8 of 29 July in which you requested me to ascertain on behalf of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty whether the B Flat clarinet music enclosed with your dispatch was a correct and up-to-date rendering of the national salute to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman.

I have encountered certain difficulties in fulfilling this request. The Sultanate has not, since about 1937, possessed a band. None of the Sultan's subjects, so far as I am aware, can read music, which the majority of them regard as sinful.

The manager of the British Bank of the Middle East who can [read music], does not possess a clarinet and, even if he did, the dignitary who in the absence of the Sultan is the recipient of ceremonial honours and who might be presumed to recognise the tune is somewhat deaf.

Fortunately I have been able to obtain and now enclose a gramophone record which has on one side a rendering by a British military band of the Salutational March to His Highness the Sultan of Muscat and Oman. The first part of this tune, which was composed by the bandmaster of a cruiser in about 1932, bears close resemblance to a pianoforte rendering by the bank manager of the clarinet music enclosed with your Lordship's dispatch.

The only further testimony I can obtain of the correctness of this music is that it reminds a resident of long standing of a tune once played by the long-defunct band of the now-disbanded Muscat infantry and known at the time to non-commissioned members of His Majesty's Service as – I quote the vernacular – "Gawd strike the Sultan blind."

I am informed by the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs that there are now no occasions on which the salutation is officially played. The last occasion on which it is known to have been played at all was on a gramophone at an evening reception given by the Military Secretary in honour of the Sultan who inadvertently sat on the record afterwards, and broke it.

Oman's current anthem, based on the 1932 composition, is here.