Antonia Fraser

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Presenter0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand eight.

Presenter0:26

My Castaway this week is the writer Antonia Fraser.

Presenter0:30

An internationally regarded historian, her best selling books are credited with bringing the past to life through great human understanding, scholarship, and a vivid readability and along with her husband, the playwright Harold Pinter, she has been at the very centre of London's literati for well over thirty years.

Presenter0:48

The eldest daughter of a family of literary Longfords, her love affair with the past started young. It was as a schoolgirl running to and from the local library that her private passion began. History, she says, was like a huge playground. It was just a delight. Um I'm wondering, Antonio Fraser, as you sit there, and it takes you years to do the research for these great historical books that you write how much of a playground it feels when you have piles of manuscripts and papers to look through these days.

Antonia Fraser1:19

I think the moment when it's not quite such a playground is when you have to sit down and actually write the book and make sense of it all. But I love research. I do all my own research and I enjoy it, unless I get someone to do something specific, in which case I acknowledge it. But that's why I call it a playground. You know, here is history, all of it, masses of it, so many countries, so many centuries, all for me to study.

Presenter1:43

And you say when you come to write it I think this must be quite an unusual way of writing. You do your research quite often for three or four years. Yes. And then you sit down and write. You don't r research and write at the same time.

Antonia Fraser1:53

No, I don't, but I know numbers of people who I respect very much, including my mother, Elizabeth Longford, who research and write. You see, I can't do that. I've got to get the whole picture, or get near to the whole picture. I might take three months of just going through my notes and hopefully thinking. Then I sit down and write as fast as possible. Then, of course, I write and rewrite and rewrite and check. But in order to keep narrative flow...

Antonia Fraser2:20

I think it wouldn't work for me to keep stopping and starting.

Presenter2:24

Now I didn't mention it in the introduction, but I must mention it as quickly as I can, that you are also the mother of six now grown up, of course, children six children, whilst writing all of these books.

Speaker 22:33

Yeah.

Presenter2:35

How on earth did you manage it? I mean quite literally manage it.

Presenter2:38

Yeah.

Antonia Fraser2:38

I don't know if I knew I'd bottle it and sell it. All I can remember is being extremely exhausted most of the time. At the same time, having always a project on the go, it gave me something to have to myself. And I think my children will confirm this. I used to sort of shut the door and put a notice on it, sort of more or less saying don't come in. And then I never had writer's block, and I would work and work and work until they all came back from school or got out of their browns. Tell me about your first piece of music then.

Antonia Fraser3:10

I came from an unmusical home, and when I fell in love I also fell in love with music and opera, which remains my great passion. I was seventeen, and my first boyfriend took me to the marriage of Figaro, and so it's associated with first love.

Antonia Fraser3:24

And

Antonia Fraser3:25

The voice of Kiritikanawa to me is magic. It was magic then, it remains completely magic. And the bewilderment of this area, you know, where am I, what's going on, it still touches me.

Speaker 23:40

Praise Horn

Speaker 23:51

Hey, Dolly Chaita.

Speaker 24:00

Uh

Speaker 24:10

What you

Speaker 24:12

What I'm doing.

Speaker 24:17

We have the Romans on the Evans

Speaker 14:21

Yeah.

Presenter4:35

Kiriti Canawa singing the Aria Dovisono from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. So you were born Antonio Pakenham in London in nineteen thirty two, the eldest of eight children. Was it a close family, a competitive family?

Antonia Fraser4:48

It was certainly a very competitive family, great talkers and debaters, and somebody once said Pakenhams talk very fast, and I said yes, of course they do, because if they left a silence, an enigmatic silence, somebody else would quickly fill it.

Presenter5:03

And what about your parents then? They they were not well off, but they were very well connected, people like Isaiah Berlin and William Beveridge, John Betcherman, all visitors.

Presenter5:12

Were you interested did you take much from the gatherings that would happen in the house as a little child?

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Uh

Antonia Fraser5:18

Yes, being brought up in North Oxford in the war, I was surrounded by very clever people. I don't think that I took in quite how celebrated these people were or were going to be, but I took it for granted. And no, we weren't well off at all. My father was a younger son with no money and a Don's salary. People sometimes think, because your father's called Lord, though he wasn't wasn't even Lord then, that you're rich. But it was far from the case. But we were rich in education.

Presenter5:46

and in the people we knew.

Presenter5:48

And how do you remember your parents? I mean, as a youngster, we we all feel we certainly all feel that that we know your father, Lord Longford, not least through his campaigning years later on. And we will talk about that later. But as a child, what sort of people were they?

Presenter6:02

My mother was tremendous

Antonia Fraser6:03

lively Quick.

Antonia Fraser6:06

terribly attractive, of bright blue eyes, black hair, bright red lips, and she was standing for Parliament and rushing about. My father, for a long time I sort of mixed him up with Jesus Christ, because he was like gentle Jesus, meek and mild. He never spoke a word of anger at all, never really spoke to us in any case, but sat in a deck chair reading a book. He was a don at Christchurch. As they grew older, my mother became a sort of charming, gentle

Antonia Fraser6:34

kindly woman, and my father became in his campaign

Presenter6:37

Oops. Yeah.

Antonia Fraser6:37

Don't

Presenter6:37

And i in those years when they were parents to these eight children, the the family vocation was was not writing but politics. They both stood, it has to be said unsuccessfully as Labour candidates. Do you remember

Antonia Fraser6:48

Do you remember campaigning with

Presenter6:49

The Uh

Antonia Fraser6:50

Oh yes, I remember canvassing in 1945. It was great fun in Oxford canvassing. And I remember being sent to what was then called an elementary school in Birmingham with my brother Thomas to show us what life was like, because my mother was prospective candidate for King's Norton division. And we were sent to the local elementary school, having come from a private school in Oxford, and we weren't given any lunch money or milk money, so we just sat at the back of the class.

Presenter7:17

Uh

Antonia Fraser7:17

Nope.

Presenter7:18

Taught us a very good lesson, actually. And given their rather rarefied backgrounds, was their socialism considered acceptable by the rest of the family? Twelve.

Antonia Fraser7:25

From my mother's back It wasn't all that rarified. Her father was a doctor. She always said that she was middle class and proud of it, and my father was an aristocrat. And we grew up thinking aristocrats were feckless and unpunctual and never had any money on them, because that was like my father. And middle class was good and intelligent and hard working.

Presenter7:46

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Antonia Fraser7:49

Well, these are the bells of Morden College, Oxford, and bells are tremendously important to me in a Proustian way. Whenever I hear bells I think of my childhood.

Antonia Fraser7:58

And I think the reason is that I remembered all the bells from the thirties, and then at the beginning of World War Two all the bells were stopped.

Antonia Fraser8:06

And the idea was they would only ring again, either if we got victory or if a parachutist landed.

Antonia Fraser8:12

My brother Thomas and I were frightfully excited at the thought of a parachutist landing, and we had special German words. We were going to say Ich libbe dic, and then we were going to kick him and say Du Hund. Anyway, that was our war effort, which you'll be relieved to hear never came about.

Presenter9:04

The bells of Maudlin College, Oxford, to remind you of your early years. And you went to the Dragon School in Oxford. You were one of only I mean, a tiny handful of girls. What was the ratio, girls to boys?

Antonia Fraser9:15

Well, I think it was about four hundred boys to twenty girls. I may be exaggerating, but it was an amazing experience and deeply enjoyable.

Presenter9:22

It did suit your personality.

Antonia Fraser9:24

Absolutely. Girls were treated completely equally. Also a sort of competitive thing at work, which was rather good, really, because I grew up thinking a girl is as good as a boy if she is. You know, I'm as clever as the next boy if I am. And you were a studious pupil? Yes, I I loved working. I loved the English. Everything really. But no history.

Antonia Fraser9:45

No, I wasn't taught history till I went to St Mary's Ascot, where a wonderful nun, Mother Mercedes, God bless her, was obsessed by history. But I taught myself history. I used to walk to Oxford Public Library, take out a history book, walk home, read it, because I was a very quick reader, walk back again. The librarian got very suspicious. But I sort of educated myself. It was my private thing. My parents weren't historians.

Antonia Fraser10:11

They were classicists and politicians, as we said.

Antonia Fraser10:15

So it was my secret thing, which may be to do with being a member of a large family. I wanted to have something of mine. One more question about school. I read you played rugby. Can that be true?

Antonia Fraser10:26

I did play rugger, and one day I was walking down the touch line of Collick Court with my younger son Orlando, and Jeff Owen

Antonia Fraser10:36

editor of the Financial Times, whose son was playing in the game, said to me, I remember you hairing down the wing.

Antonia Fraser10:44

because he'd been at the Dragon School, and Orlando looked at me absolutely gobsmacked, and I said, Why are you looking so surprised? He said, Mum, we thought you made all of that up just to make us laugh.

Presenter10:55

Uh

Antonia Fraser10:55

So you were all

Presenter10:55

So you are on

Antonia Fraser10:56

In the woods. Wing as well. You were a glory girl. Did you ever score a try? Of course I scored a tribe. So impressed. John Betcherman, my Barrett's friend. Always pretended that I'd been in the scrum, which I hadn't, and I got quite cross till I found that for Betterman to be in the scrum was sort of more exciting more Joan Hunt had done.

Presenter11:12

Uh

Antonia Fraser11:12

Three

Presenter11:12

Your mother then converted your father to socialism, and your father converted your mother to Roman Catholicism. I imagine a house where there was

Antonia Fraser11:15

And you have

Presenter11:21

A lot of discussion going on, and a lot of, I was going to say, point scoring, that's not quite right, but a lot of points being made. I think there must be.

Antonia Fraser11:28

must have been discussions, my mother being a very intelligent woman who objected to the Catholic Church at the time of the Spanish Civil War.

Antonia Fraser11:36

There must have been talks, but I don't remember them. What I remember is I always wanted to go to Mass with my father.

Antonia Fraser11:42

I liked bells, I liked incense. All of that made me want to be a Catholic long before my mother became one.

Presenter11:49

And they left that decision to you. They left it to the older children to decide for themselves.

Antonia Fraser11:53

The two eldest were allowed to choose. I was sent to Saint Mary's Ascot. It was wonderful for me, and I was converted. I insisted on having an adult conversion, but it became very important to me that experience of encountering Catholicism as a teenager.

Presenter12:09

I want to leap ahead a little, if you don't mind, to your time at university. And something confused me. Clearly, at school, you did well, you were industrious, you were competitive, you were scholarly.

Antonia Fraser12:10

Little

Presenter12:18

And that is something that obviously has been to your considerable advantage in your writing. And yet, when I read about your university years

Presenter12:25

You say that you were idle and pleasure bent.

Antonia Fraser12:29

I was certainly pleasure bent, and I was as idle as you could be in the early fifties if you were at a ladies' college, where your tutors did not permit idleness. I think I had worked very hard up to that point, and enjoyed working.

Antonia Fraser12:42

And then I think I decided subconsciously this was going to be a time of enjoyment, you know, romance, hopefully, and all of that. And was it? Yes.

Presenter12:52

Absolutely. And then after university, your first job was publishing?

Antonia Fraser12:56

Yes, I went to work for George Weidenfeld.

Antonia Fraser12:59

the great publisher, who is still a great friend of mine, and has published all my books, but that came afterwards.

Presenter13:04

And at that point did you know that your aim at some point in the future was to be a writer, or did you simply think you would take this job and see what happened?

Presenter13:12

I was arright.

Antonia Fraser13:12

Cut.

Presenter13:13

Uh

Antonia Fraser13:13

I wrote from my earliest years. There are some historical romances which deserve never to be dug up, but I thought were wonderful at the time. The question was, how to earn my living? Let's take a break for some music. Tell me about your third choice.

Antonia Fraser13:26

This is Wagner, and George Weidenfeldt first took me to the whole ring in a week.

Antonia Fraser13:31

which left a permanent impression, and I've chosen Placido Domingo singing, because he's my ultimate hero, and he sings to me, directly to me, whenever he's on stage or on a C D.

Speaker 113:44

Industrialism.

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Fire to the love side of them white girls that love

Speaker 114:13

O sin that peril I'm sorry she is returned On the rift of her loss, Mosa and Marlene

Speaker 114:28

Leave him funding a blue and I'm a sprust and spring fine at the last.

Presenter14:35

Placido Domingo singing the Aria Winter Stummer Wicken den Vonnement from Wagner's Die Valkyrie.

Presenter14:41

So you met and married your first husband, who was a Tory MP, as you mentioned, and your mother and father were both very active in the Labour Party. Indeed, they wanted to be Labour politicians. How did that go down with your parents?

Antonia Fraser14:52

Oh, well, I didn't ask them, actually.

Presenter14:55

Yeah.

Antonia Fraser14:55

We just got engaged. He was of course a Catholic, Hugh Fraser, which pleased them very much.

Presenter15:01

Very interesting there that you very clearly put Catholicism above all else. That is something that is instrumental when you're writing. You you always feel that it well, of course, in history it it does have a central role, but that you need to connect with something through uh the religiosity of the individual.

Antonia Fraser15:17

Uh Yes, I'm I'm very interested in religion, and it after all has dominated the lives of so many people and continues to do so.

Antonia Fraser15:25

And I noticed after a bit that all my subjects have led lives in which religion has been extremely important, although not always the same religion Cromwell's religion not exactly that of Mary Queen of Scots, but religion very important to both. So I'm very grateful that I had

Antonia Fraser15:41

a religious background, but I was instructed.

Presenter15:44

And was having six children part of your religious plan? I mean, or did you suddenly f I mean, you can't suddenly find yourself the mother of six children. Did you always want to have a big family?

Antonia Fraser15:54

I didn't really think about it, actually. Nowadays I see I was very lucky to have six children they're all grown up.

Antonia Fraser16:00

But I never planned it, so I can't really take the credit for it.

Presenter16:02

And as if being a mother of six children wasn't enough in itself then, the first big book, which was published in in nineteen sixty nine, was it written by the time you'd had four or five children, is that right? And then published after the sixth? It was researched.

Antonia Fraser16:16

Yeah.

Antonia Fraser16:17

Oftreit had five children.

Antonia Fraser16:20

I began writing it just after the birth of my sixth child. And so the little baby was wir in the corner of the room while you were. Yes, the little baby enjoyed the sound of the typewriter, I'm telling you. Just as well.

Presenter16:29

Yeah.

Antonia Fraser16:30

the old kind of typewriter. When I stopped he started to squeal. So naturally I typed on and I wrote Mary Queen of Scots in nine and a half months. Do you have very high expectations of your

Presenter16:41

Uh

Antonia Fraser16:41

Yourself.

Presenter16:42

Off.

Antonia Fraser16:42

Yeah.

Antonia Fraser16:43

I didn't have high expectations of Mary Queen of Scots. I must say I was absolutely stunned when it became an overnight bestseller.

Presenter16:50

Yes.

Antonia Fraser16:50

I mean in 11 different languages it was translated into it was this instant hit. Yes, it was extraordinary, extraordinary thing to happen to me.

Presenter16:53

Yeah, it was this.

Antonia Fraser16:58

In some ways I've still not quite got over it, you know. What luck to have your first serious historical book, a bestseller, is is so fortunate because booksellers love you. They always think you might do it again. And did you like the attention that it brought? Yes, it was marvellous being sort of congratulated. And it was lovely. Altogether, it was a very happy time in my life. Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Antonia Fraser17:21

Well, William Bird is very important to me. He was a Catholic in the time of Queen Elizabeth, who managed to serve the Queen in the Chapel Royal, and also compose masses for the Catholics who were secret refuseniks, as we might call them, or recusants. And I particularly like the sanctus from the Mass for Five Voices.

Presenter18:41

The sector is from William Bird's Mass for Five Voices, sung by the choir of Saint John's College, Cambridge, directed by George Guest.

Presenter18:48

So, Lady Antonia Fraser, how do you begin going about researching such immense historical figures? Where do you begin?

Antonia Fraser18:56

I generally begin by just trying to get the main date straight in my head, so I've got a little plan, and I write down about ten questions that I would want to find answered in a book.

Antonia Fraser19:08

And with Mary Queen of Scots I lost that list, and then I found it, and I'd answered nearly all of them, except one, which was how tall was Mary Queen of Scots?'Cause she was in fact very tall. So I hastily went and put it in. And do you know it was the first question I used to be asked at lectures. So the list was important.

Presenter19:26

And what about handling the manuscripts themselves? When you sit among them, what sort of experience is that?

Presenter19:33

Well, it's it's thrilling.

Antonia Fraser19:34

actually, even after all these years, I never get over it. When I was working on Marie Antoinette in the Archive Nationale in Paris, I was shown her wardrobe book, which is enormous, with little swatches of material, and this would be offered to her by a kneeling dame d'Honneur, and she would prick the swatches of the outfits she was going to wear that day, like eight outfits in Monday. And you still see in this book the pin marks. And looking at that was quite thrilling. I had to wear white gloves for conservation. And even more thrilling, if you like, was the fact that there were two armed gendarmes standing behind me, because it's a national treasure. That was a thrilling and also slightly menacing moment.

Presenter20:15

And I remember, once you had become very well known for having this historical bestseller, you also started to appear quite regularly on television. Things like Call My Bluff and so on. You you enjoy being part of the sort of greater can we call it cultural event. You enjoy popular culture.

Antonia Fraser20:33

Yes, I loved it. I loved being on Call My Bluff. And later on radio I loved being on my word. I li I like that kind of thing,'cause a a writer's life, scholar's life, is essentially solitary, and it's fun to get out and meet people. Tell me about your next piece of

Presenter20:48

Music

Antonia Fraser20:48

Happy.

Presenter20:49

Uh

Antonia Fraser20:50

Well, this is Janet Baker singing from Orfeo, Gluk's Orfeo. She's singing, I think, the most moving song of all, What Shall I Do Without Eurydice? And Marie Antoinette introduced Gluck.

Antonia Fraser21:03

to Paris. He had taught her in Vienna, and everybody became mad about Orfeo. There's a wonderful story of a man writing I knew I had to cry in Orfeo. I didn't know where, so I took the precaution of crying throughout the opera, and when I read that I thought, My goodness, I'm glad I wasn't sitting next to you.

Speaker 221:24

Oh sick.

Speaker 221:28

Yeah.

Speaker 221:54

Oh dear

Speaker 221:57

Peaceful way.

Presenter22:21

Janet Baker, sing Aria que faroscensa e Oridice from Glukes Orpheus and Eurydice. So it was nineteen seventy five, Antonia Fraser, when you met it was painfully detailed in the press at the time you met and later went on to marry the playwright Harold Pinter. You've lived together now for some thirty-three years. I wonder what it's like, two writers living together, two very productive writers living together in the same house. Well, we've lived together nearly half our lives, actually, so the answer is it's

Antonia Fraser22:50

Yeah.

Presenter22:50

Delightful. And do you have different ways of writing? Are you both separate and hidden away from each other? Yes.

Antonia Fraser22:57

Yeah. Uh Check

Presenter22:58

Uh

Antonia Fraser22:58

I had a room on a holiday, and I was writing King Charles the Second, and I sat with my typewriter busying away, clack, clack, clack, and Harold walked about, smoked in those days, long given up a black sobrani, looked at the Guardian, and didn't visibly do anything. At the end of the holiday, I'd written one chapter of Charles the Second, and he'd written his play called Betrayal.

Antonia Fraser23:20

Uh

Presenter23:20

And what of all these writers that surround you? Y your mother also wrote historical biographies, but she didn't publish her first book until you were thirty five. With five children, yeah.

Antonia Fraser23:31

I didn't learn at mother's knee, but um she was enormously important to me to have a critic of her stature in the family. Did you give her your manuscripts to read? Yes, definitely. And she gave me hers, which was great fun. I was once doing it on holiday in Italy in the presence of Barbara Epstein, editor of the New York Review of Books. She said, What are you doing? I said, correcting my mother's manuscript. She said, Oh, what a psychological delight that must be

Presenter23:57

Yes, and that is exactly where I'm going with this, of course, because a lot of people would find it terrifically difficult for their mother to be giving them incisive criticisms of just where they've gone wrong and what word they need to remove to make that paragraph better.

Antonia Fraser24:10

I liked it. My mother was very sharp about my grammar. Finally I had to say, well, who taught me grammar?

Presenter24:17

So who do you show your do you show your work to Hanald now?

Antonia Fraser24:19

Yes, he's my first reader. And that's marvellous in a different way. Harold is a born editor. He can just see that you've used a word or pick on a point, just instinctive. It's great to have him. And does he give you his plays to read?

Presenter24:33

Uh

Antonia Fraser24:34

Yes, he does.

Presenter24:35

True.

Antonia Fraser24:35

Yeah.

Presenter24:35

But I don't offer great many corrections. Why is that? Because I can't imagine you're a woman without opinion.

Antonia Fraser24:42

I don't offer corrections, because on the whole they are perfect, and I did once offer a suggestion for an extra scene, and Harold walked rapidly round Holland Park in a frightful rage, and came back and wrote it.

Presenter24:56

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Antonia Fraser24:58

This is from Haydn Larraine, and it's so moving, because when Marie Antoinette was imprisoned in the Tower shortly before her execution, the guards who were sorry for her brought her a harpsichord, and there was a scrap of music by coincidence on it, which was a piece of Haydn which had been composed for her, because Haydn taught her. And she said, Ah, that was another time.

Antonia Fraser25:20

So I thought I'd have a bit of that.

Speaker 225:22

Yeah.

Presenter26:21

Part of the first movement of Haydn's Symphony Lorraine, played by the Hungarian Philharmonic conducted by Antal Dorati. So your father, then, Lord Longford, died in two thousand and one, and your mother died only a year later. You were with her when she died?

Antonia Fraser26:36

Yes, I was fortunate enough to be with both of them.

Antonia Fraser26:40

And um they just missed being married for seventy years, uh by a few months. Seventy years, incredible, isn't it, actually.

Presenter26:48

And then in the middle of all of this, Harold became seriously ill. It was a cancer of the esophagus that he had in two thousand two. That must have come as a tremendous shock, a very, very serious illness.

Antonia Fraser27:00

Yes, it was a um

Antonia Fraser27:02

It was certainly a very difficult time, but as he says publicly, he had brilliant doctors, and that's absolutely true.

Presenter27:09

And he was given the Nobel Prize. This was whilst he was ill. He got the Nobel Prize when he.

Antonia Fraser27:14

He was ill with something else, which is an autoimmune disease, because he's had sort of three things. But anyway, he was actually at home, he'd been in hospital, and he buzzed me. We have an intercom and said I seem to have won a Nobel Prize. And I heard myself say, Well, we'd better turn on tele and see whether it's true.

Antonia Fraser27:34

And did you? And so we sat on the sofa and looked at Batelli, and it was true. And we kept saying for the rest of the day, and indeed for the rest of life, I can't believe it I can't quite believe it, because I never thought it would happen, and he certainly never thought it would happen because of his political views, which he expresses strongly.

Presenter27:53

It is often, of course, almost more difficult for the person who has to stand by and watch the man or woman that they love go through their treatment. How did you yourself handle things?

Antonia Fraser28:03

I don't think it's more difficult. I think it's difficult i in quite a different way, because all the time you mustn't show endless anguish. That's the last thing people need. The great fear, as I call it, which is that they will die, is always with you. But you simply can't indulge yourself, except in the watches of the night when you can't help it. So you must be calm. That, I think, is different from the wretched sufferer who's simply trying to keep going. And Harold is is well now. I mean, he's going to uh cross my fingers, but he's well.

Presenter28:36

I'm

Presenter28:40

Well, tell me then about your next choice.

Antonia Fraser28:42

Well, this is Harold's favorite piece of music.

Antonia Fraser28:45

He loves it. It's the slow movement from Beethoven's string quartet.

Presenter29:33

Part of the third movement of Beethoven's String Quartet Op. one three two played by the Medici string quartet.

Presenter29:39

You said at the beginning, Antonia Fraser, that in your childhood history was.

Presenter29:45

private place, your own place, that you could go, and that was one of the attractions for you. And also when you were writing and you had this young, vigorous family of six children that again you could

Speaker 129:54

Yeah.

Presenter29:56

Close the door firmly, and you would retreat to history. Is it still a place of um?

Presenter30:01

Almost solitude for you.

Antonia Fraser30:04

Yes, it's still a place of solitude and a solace. I mean, for example, when Harold was ill, I was writing my last book, Love and Louis XIV, and all my friends said to me, How can you write? How can you manage it? And I said, How can I get through life if I don't write? At least for a few hours a day. I stopped thinking about him and his plight, and I immerse myself in the plight of Louis XIV. I'm very fortunate in that way, I think.

Presenter30:29

And this family life, you say it's extraordinary somebody who wanted to be an only child, who was one of eight, who didn't plan to have six children, but went on to to have them, now has, as you is it, seventeen grandchildren. Yes, isn't it wonderful. Are they very engaged in your life? Are they coming and going and causing chaos, these grandchildren?

Antonia Fraser30:36

Ah

Antonia Fraser30:38

Yeah, it's just

Presenter30:43

Uh

Antonia Fraser30:43

I'm very engaged in their lives. I love all the various stages. It's so exciting. The eldest is just going to be twenty one, and the youngest is just over a year, and it's kind of thrilling.

Presenter30:54

And you live in the same family home that you've you've lived there almost fifty years. Yes.

Antonia Fraser30:57

Yeah.

Presenter30:58

To see young grandchildren in that home in the same sort of nurseries and bedrooms that your own children were in must be, um well, it must be very satisfying.

Antonia Fraser31:05

and I keep addressing them by that parrot's name.

Presenter31:08

James

Antonia Fraser31:08

Uh

Presenter31:08

Uh

Antonia Fraser31:08

This

Presenter31:08

Day.

Presenter31:10

And you love in your spare time, s such as it is. You love to swim and you love to garden, I understand. So

Speaker 131:15

Uh

Antonia Fraser31:15

I understand

Speaker 131:15

Uh

Presenter31:16

You might be rather happy on this island on your own.

Presenter31:19

Yes, I

Antonia Fraser31:19

I think the swimming would be absolutely marvellous. I love swimming in the sea, and I'm going to be on an island where it is a marvellous calm sea, most of it, and then a few waves which I shan't go near.

Presenter31:30

And the gardening, would you attempt to cultivate the island?

Antonia Fraser31:33

Yes,'cause I I like trying to make my London garden like a garden in Tuscany. I like having sort of myrtle and mimosa and olives and all those kind of things. So I think I'd be very happy.

Presenter31:43

And what about being sustained on this island? Of course you're absolutely on your own. Your religion, I imagine, would be the thing that would sustain you.

Presenter31:51

Yes, I might become a pantheist, I think, you know, looking at the Blue yonder. Would it be solace? Enough, do you think?

Antonia Fraser31:56

Uh

Antonia Fraser31:57

No, I think to be without Harold and without seeing my family, religion wouldn't be solace enough. But at the same time, adversity is always the great test of your religious feelings, and I suppose a desert island is adversity of a sort. So I hope it would deepen my faith.

Presenter32:13

Tell me about your final choice, then.

Antonia Fraser32:15

This is Mitzuko Uchida playing Mozart, Mozart my favourite composer, and Mitzko my favourite interpreter of Mozart. And we have the privilege of playing bridge with Mitzuko and her partner Robert Cooper. And when I look at her dealing the cards, I think

Antonia Fraser32:30

these wonderful fingers, these marvellous long fingers, and I dream about what she will be doing. So she's coming with me to my desert island, anyway, in the form of this beautiful piece.

Presenter33:41

Part of the third movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. twenty three, played by Mitzko Uchida, with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Tate. So, Antonia, I will give you the Bible, as you know, and the complete works of Shakespeare. What other book would you like to take?

Antonia Fraser33:55

Uh

Antonia Fraser33:56

Uh

Presenter33:56

Well I shall take the

Antonia Fraser33:56

The collected works of Sir Walter Scott. Scott's wildly out of fashion, but I adore him, and they're so long and so colourful I owe a great deal to Scott in kindling my interest in history, Kennilworth, Ivanhoe, and all of that. So I think I'll have a good time. And your luxury.

Antonia Fraser34:13

Well, I have this fantasy about swimming just in ropes and ropes of false pearls, masses of false pearls, all round me, and there'll be nobody to see, so in I will go, swimming about with my pearls round my neck.

Presenter34:26

How very glamorous. And the piece of music that you would run to save if the waves were to threaten to wash it away. Which one would it be?

Antonia Fraser34:33

It will be Mitsuko Uchida playing the Metza, because that will lift my spirits and give me such joy.

Presenter34:40

Lady Antonia Fraser, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much.

Presenter34:52

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.