Journalist, speech writer, political adviser radio journalist, BBC Monitoring Service 1941-73. He worked for more than 30 years for the BBC Radio Monitoring Service and was for over 40 years a speech writer and political adviser to the late Grand Duke Vladimir Romanov, the would-be Tsar of Russia. He was the elder son of the prominent artist Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin, a member of the Mir Ikusstva, Diaghilev's World of Art group, and an Irish mother, Mary Chambers. He arrived in London with his mother and his brother Alexander Bilibin, an artist, on a holiday in 1917 and they became stateless emigres following the February revolution. He was educated at St Paul's School, London, and at St John's College, Oxford. In 1927 he joined the Mladorossy party a movement of young scions of the Russian aristocracy, led by Alexander Kazembek, who wanted to unite revolutionary achievement with historic tradition. Their motto was 'Tsar and Soviets'. The chairman of the Supreme Council of the party was Grand Duke Dimitry Pavlovich who, with Prince Felix Yusupov, had been one of the two principal conspirators in the murder of Rasputin in 1916. Grand Duke Dimitry and Bilibin became friends and it was Dimitry who in 1936 introduced Bilibin to Lord Beaverbrook, who invited Bilibin to join his monitoring service at Cherkeley Court for the Daily Express, where he worked until 1938 when the station was closed. In 1941 Bilibin joined the Monitoring Sevice of the BBC as a Russian linguist, and stayed with it until 1973. There he met his wife, Jean Stevenson, who also worked at the Monitoring Service. He was on duty on 21 June 1941, when Stalin delivered his famous speech 'Brothers and sisters . . .', when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. He met Grand Duke Vladimir in 1950 and remained close to him until his death in April 1992. He became head of his chancellery and his speech writer and political adviser.