My History: A Memoir of Growing Up

by Antonia Fraser

  Despite these nocturnal sidelines, I had by no means lost my interest in History. For example, I developed an obsession with the historian Thomas Carlyle and The French Revolution, for its style as well as the story it told so dramatically. Later I would shudder away from the use of the historic present for myself (and to a certain extent in the writings of other people, even those I admired). I even chose, as an example of how not to anticipate the story, Carlyle’s eloquent adjuration to the fourteen-year-old Marie Antoinette as she crossed over from her native Austria to her future kingdom of France: “O there are tears in store for thee; bitterest wailings, soft womanly meltings…”

  In my own book I pointed out piously that the girl, still half a child, was upset at having to leave Mops, her beloved pug, but otherwise looking forward to becoming the Dauphiness of France (potentially beating her sisters in rank, always fun). She could and did have absolutely no idea of the terrible fate awaiting her twenty-two years later.

  The words of the historian F. W. Maitland—“We must always be aware that what now lies in the past, once lay in the future”—were far more influential on my personal reconstruction of events. But this is to be ungrateful for the sheer pleasure which reading Carlyle gave me, still a secret pleasure, as I cannot remember choosing to discuss the subject with anyone. When he concluded The French Revolution as follows: “And so here, O Reader, has the time come for us two to part…To me thou wert as a beloved shade…To thee I was but as a Voice. Yet was our relation a kind of sacred one,” he spoke directly to this shade who did indeed feel herself to be beloved.

  My daytime life continued to centre on Cork Street. I was able to oversee for example the transformation of my mother from the active politician to the published writer, although in the first instance, Points for Parents was only a book put together from articles for the Beaverbrook press. With hindsight one can see that a woman of Elizabeth’s exceptional energy was never going to settle calmly into middle age, especially now that child-bearing, something she saw with enjoyment as being literally creative, was over. This was because Elizabeth had had a life-or-death experience at the age of forty-four, as she herself recounts in her autobiography, when she was rushed to hospital from Bernhurst with an unexpected miscarriage. Mrs. Pope, our housekeeper, told her on her return: “Lady Pakenham, I did not think you would come back.”

  Elizabeth remained an extremely attractive woman with her neat figure, those elegant long legs in proportion to her short height, and a pretty face, the blue eyes which had captured the shy Frank Pakenham, still bright if there were becoming silvery wings in the dark hair. (Elizabeth firmly disapproved of women of her age who allowed more than the wings to turn silver.) Although impatient with shopping, and highly economical by nature, in vivid contrast to my father, she always managed to be well dressed. We were not however, I should state, a mother-and-daughter couple who went cosily shopping together. The only joint outing I can recall occurred when we went together in search of her bride’s mother dress for my first wedding: she never asked to see my own dress; the need for such an inspection didn’t occur to either of us. Elizabeth rejected costume after costume on grounds of cost and I got crosser and crosser. Then she explained: “You see, I have promised to match the exact cost of my dress with a donation to Oxfam.” Someone else might have pointed out that, in the good cause of Oxfam, the more expensive the dress she bought, the better. Instead I burst out in a rage which contained all the frustration of my past adolescence when I thought she was unjustifiably parsimonious and she thought I was ridiculously extravagant: “This is my wedding, not your bloody good deed.”

  With her failure at the 1950 Oxford General Election, Elizabeth’s political ambitions were set aside; although it was noticeable that this Christian woman sometimes showed unexpected traces of malice where other women politicians were concerned. One can understand it in the case of Mrs. Thatcher, who was after all of the opposing party; but as a matter of fact Elizabeth rather enjoyed being her country neighbour when the Thatchers had an apartment at Scotney Castle, near Bernhurst, and positively liked Denis. It was a woman like Barbara Castle who was the subject of her occasional barbs: this told me more than anything else that she never quite got over not getting into Parliament in her own right.

  The articles which were turned into Points for Parents were mainly written in the weekday house in Cheyne Gardens. As the daughter often around (but living in the Basement) I was amused by scenes of maternal wrath which contrasted with the wise advice dispensed in the press. “Catherine, how can I write my article on ‘Parents! Please spare the rod!’ when you won’t be quiet…” Elizabeth would rush angrily in the direction of her youngest daughter. But that secret cynicism was the reaction of someone almost if not quite grown up, who had gone some way but not all the way to finding what she wanted to do in life. Elizabeth’s transformation into a historical writer—her first work of History Jameson’s Raid was published after I left home—and my transformation into a mother meant that our relationship was destined to be one of great harmony in the future. Once she had been interested in Small Children and Politics and I had been interested in Romance and History; now with my Small Children and her History, we had all the most important things in common.

  My relationship with my father was completely different. I admired him intensely and I loved him, two quite separate things. But intimacy of the sort I would enjoy with Elizabeth was not on offer. I believe that our mother, his saviour from his unhappy youth, was the only person in his life that Frank was truly close to, although his numerous friends meant a great deal to him. These included people of all ages: Jon Snow was a case in point. He was especially important to Frank because as a young man he had come to work for Frank at the New Horizon Youth Centre, having been rusticated from Liverpool University for taking part in an anti-apartheid protest; they remained close for the rest of Frank’s life. Nearer his own age, the philanthropic David Astor, proprietor of the Observer, was another example. David was the son of his early patron, Lady Astor, but a very different character from the rumbustious woman, tiny but fierce, who had been the first female MP to sit in the House of Commons. A visit to the stately pile of Cliveden illustrated the point. Lady Astor looked down the long table, on being told of my existence at the bottom of it, and called out: “I’m glad you’re not as ugly as your father!” At the age of fifteen, I didn’t know whether I should accept the compliment or avenge the insult. David in his gentle voice put everything right: “She likes you, you know.”

  To an observer, the marriage of Frank and Elizabeth remained, as it had always been, the most wonderful thing in both their lives, even if Elizabeth continued to specialize in that kind of tender crossness—occasionally not so tender!—when dealing with Frank’s determined otherworldliness. I shall not easily forget Frank’s speech on the fortieth anniversary of their wedding. It was held in a room at the White Tower where in Oxford days he had once shared a pied-à-terre with another close friend, Nicko Henderson. In front of his assembled children, Frank gave the following as an example of married bliss: he recalled returning home that evening without his latchkey, having lost it for the millionth time. “Your mother went at me like a twenty-year-old,” he said dreamily.

  Then there was the question of her annual birthday present, a dress which he duly bought without her, and then watched proudly as she tried it on. The trouble was that the dress was nearly always too large for Elizabeth, never very tall, and like everyone else becoming smaller with age. And one year, the year of the Giant Red Dress, it was truly enormous. Out of curiosity, I asked my father how he chose the dresses. “I go into that shop on the King’s Road, and ask for a dress from the nearest girl I see. When she asks, ‘What size?’ I always answer: ‘Your size.’ And it always works.” He paused. Even Frank had noticed the overwhelming size of the Giant Red Dress. “The trouble was that the girl in the shop this year was rather a fattie.” Frank gave his sweet smile. “But it would have been unkind not to give the
same answer.”

  His courtesy to “the ladies” was always touching, scrambling to his feet if one such came into the room, even in extreme old age. On the matter of dress again, Frank also prided himself on having discovered that autumn generally brought about a new outfit (or maybe it was the coincidence of Elizabeth’s late August birthday and her annual acquisition). At that time of year, he would often bestow a compliment on a lady for recently acquiring a highly becoming costume. No one ever had the heart to contradict him, even in the oldest scruffiest dress. “Ah, I knew it,” Frank would say proudly.

  Having got on extremely well with my father when he was teaching me at Oxford, I now settled into a sincere admiration for all his good works, especially his long-held interest in prisoners. This included ex-prisoners. I attended the initial meeting of the New Bridge, an association to help them, which was held at Kettner’s restaurant in Soho in 1955. The spur was the conviction and imprisonment of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and the journalist Peter Wildeblood for alleged offences with young RAF servicemen. I already knew Edward Montagu, but now got to know Peter Wildeblood quite well, starting with the moment when I was proud to attend the breakfast given for him on his release from Wormwood Scrubs. From the first I liked him for his combination of courage and vitality; he was excellent, lively company from that post-prison party onward. It was Weidenfeld & Nicolson who would publish Peter Wildeblood’s important book Against the Law which detailed his experiences in prison and encouraged campaigning for law reform; Peter also testified to the Wolfenden Committee, which in its 1957 report suggested the decriminalization of homosexuality, finally achieved ten years later.

  My father’s active involvement in the work of penal reform was one of the themes of my youth which I took for granted. That disquieting moment when I enquired what the teatime visitor to Singletree had done and was told that he had committed arson, was merely my initiation. The New Bridge aimed to provide support for ex-offenders who might not otherwise receive it, and I made a few attempts in that direction. My subsequent efforts to take lecturers down to Wandsworth Prison were probably more successful as at least I provided entertainment for the inhabitants. Such expeditions were certainly rich in incident. These were the days of capital punishment, that cause about which I had felt strongly since adolescence, which would not be abolished in Britain until the mid Sixties. (That horrible piece of so-called justice which was the execution of Ruth Ellis, and influenced many people to become abolitionist, occurred in 1955.) Executions were still carried out at Wandsworth. The chaplain there was responsible for our appearances on behalf of the Home Office; every now and then he would telephone and murmur confidentially that the visit must be cancelled: “The boys are rather restive today.” It was a code and a chilling one.

  Another unwritten rule was the need to bring down a lecturer, once you had made the booking. We were given to understand that the fearsome “boys” would not like being disappointed, as they were frightened of nothing and no one: certainly the audiences looked extraordinarily tough to my sheltered eyes. On one occasion I was let down by Roy Jenkins who, to my amazement and horror, chose at the last minute to attend a vital vote in the House of Commons rather than lecture in Wandsworth Prison. What to do? Quick, hadn’t my brother Thomas recently given a lecture at the Royal Geographical Society? It turned out that he had and he was delighted to give it again at Wandsworth. It was in this way that I found myself travelling down to the South London prison in the Home Office car with Thomas at my side, wearing his habitual pair of sandals over socks; my heart sank. If only I’d noticed the sandals before we set off ! In my fevered recollection, it seems that he was also wearing shorts, but since it was winter in England, this must be my imagination.

  At this point I realized that I had never asked what the lecture was about.

  “The Wadi Hadramaut,” said Thomas confidently. “It went down very well at the Royal Geographical Society. I think they’ll like it at Wandsworth.” I did not have the heart to tell Thomas that this was one of the great non sequiturs. Our prison audience, since its members had nothing to lose, was extremely critical and in particular anything affected—as they saw it—could go down badly; there had been the occasion of the visit of Lord David Cecil, for example…As to the subject, I needed Thomas to explain to me that this was a remote area of the Yemen, populated by a few Bedouins and their flocks. I was sunk in gloom. I was after all delivering my beloved brother, sandals and all, to the wolves. We drank a ritual glass of sherry with the prison chaplain first and I just hoped it would dull the pain.

  Thomas began at once in his voice which became quite high when he was speaking: “Hands up who has been in the Wadi Hadramaut lately!”

  There was complete silence. These prisoners were almost universally recidivists, that is they had been in prison for one serious offence or another for many years. Then came a single shout of laughter. After that came roars of laughter from the whole large hall. And after that Thomas could do no wrong.

  “They really loved it,” I said to Thomas with complete sincerity in the car on the way home.

  “Yes, I think they did.” My brother sounded just a tiny bit complacent although Thomas was normally the reverse of a self-satisfied person: his ever-active mind was on quite other things than himself. Then he explained: “You see, Antonia, on the way down I felt you were just a little nervous. I wanted to reassure you. Everyone always loves my lecture on the Wadi Hadramaut.”

  Compared to this, my agitation over the visit of General Sir Francis Festing, who had an outstanding war record in the Far East, was a very minor affair. Once again I had failed to establish the subject of the lecture in advance, in this case out of deference, because it was such an honour to have such a heroic man in the first place. This time the last-minute question elicited the answer: “Japanese swords,” followed by the disquieting information that Sir Francis had brought one fine example with him and, as usual in his lecture, intended to display it. Once again I was filled with dread: was it conceivable that the prisoners, aroused to frenzy by the sword, would rush the platform? Once again my fears were groundless. The mighty soldier and future Field Marshal—he was enormously tall—swirled his sword with enthusiasm as he lectured. No one dared move.

  Despite these tenuous early involvements in prison affairs, my real interests at this time were purely literary. I continued to admire my father for his work with prisoners, so firmly based on the Christian Faith which led him to the inexorable conclusion that no one was beyond redemption. From this it followed that everyone, however ghastly the crime concerned, had the right to rehabilitation ending in theory by release. In later years, my sister Rachel was inspired by his example to enter this world and my brother Kevin chaired from the outset the Longford Trust for ex-offenders set up after Frank’s death. In my case, while I quite understood, influenced by both my parents, that you must stand up, speak out, dare to be a Daniel and all those admirable things, I was to become engaged in another direction. It would be the welfare of writers, not only the economics of it at home but the issue of free speech and even freedom itself in those countries abroad where writers were at risk about which I felt passionately and, wherever possible, took action.

  This was because from the first it had been intoxicating to get to know writers, whereas the politicians of my parents’ circle now seemed pleasant but remote figures. The way I had moved away from politics is symbolized by my attitude to the General Election of 26 May 1955. This was held a few months after the eighty-year-old Winston Churchill had at last relinquished the Conservative premiership in favour of Anthony Eden. It would be the first election in which I was able to vote (I was just short of twenty-three, at a time when voting started at twenty-one). As a young woman of the sort once known as a flapper in electoral terms, the vote for which so many had struggled should perhaps have meant more to me. As it was, I used to walk up and down Chelsea Manor Street daily on my way to the King’s Road, and contemplate the po
litical posters without much excitement. Meanwhile, both my parents were frantically electioneering for Labour.

  One day there was a poster which did catch my fancy. It showed Anthony Eden looking at me tenderly: he appeared thoroughly trustworthy, as well as genially handsome and silver-haired—a George Clooney for his time. Beneath the large photograph it said: WORKING FOR PEACE. How nice, I thought, working for peace, I really like that, I think I’ll vote for this delightful, peaceful man. I went into the town hall at the top of the street and asked when Polling Day was. There was a considerable bustle in the town hall and no one seemed to understand the question so it took me some time to discover that this actually was Polling Day. Thus I cast my first vote—as it happened, for a Conservative. It also initiated a tendency to vote for the person not the party.

  It would be perfectly natural to link this Tory vote with the fact that I got engaged to a Tory MP, Hugh Fraser, just over a year later. Breaking the news to my contemporaries certainly caused some surprise (Hugh was so very different in every way from Michael Alexander). The best or worst moment, according to your point of view, occurred when I decided to confide in my friend Hugh Thomas. The future shining beacon of historians was then living at the Cavendish Hotel, off Piccadilly: not far, in short, from Cork Street. The publication of The Spanish Civil War was five years off. We had fallen into the agreeable habit of lunching together. Hugh and I were in fact happily destined for a lifetime of amitié which was not amoureuse but it would be strange if this gallant man had not thrown the occasional flowery compliment in my direction. I took a deep breath.

  “What I’m going to tell you may sound surprising at first. But the more you think about it, the more you will realize that it is in fact a very good thing…” I paused dramatically. “I’m going to marry Hugh!”