Do you feel English, British or something else?
I feel English but, for some reason, I never use the word British, except if someone complains when I’m filling in a passport form. My family is Irish. When I go to Ireland, I feel Irish. Quite a lot of people are like that — you feel two things in contradiction with each other.
Who is your favourite figure from history?
I would like to have met Charles II. He liked women; he admitted the Jews by law; he was very tolerant with the Catholics; he tried to be tolerant of the Quakers. He put up with verbal assaults from them with good humour.
He was half French and spent time in France and the Netherlands. Is he an argument for multiculturalism?
Surely Englishness can include multiculturalism? After all, for better or for worse, we today are the product of an empire from the last century. I don’t think “English” means only people who were born in Britain.
Do you feel nostalgia for a lost England?
There are periods in which I would have liked to have lived. But, as a woman, you would have had to accept that you were going to have a lot of children, so I wouldn’t like to have lived much before the age of proper medicine, with regard to childbirth.
When was England greatest?
It’s difficult to say, but I think that England was at its most heroic in 1940. After all, the Second World War was a defensive war and we were extremely brave.
Who is the greatest Englishwoman?
The obvious choice is Elizabeth I, for her ability to suffer adversity and come through a pretty awful childhood, beginning with her mother’s execution.
What about the greatest Englishman?
It might be nice to choose a writer. I think that Rudyard Kipling is an interesting figure, in the originality of his thought. He was both English and multicultural.
Is monarchy still a useful concept for England?
Yes. You’ve only got to see what happens in other countries to think how lucky we are. I’m a great admirer of the Queen and I believe in a limited monarchy. I don’t think we should have lots of minor royalty — it’s bad luck on them and it’s not very good for the monarchy. Recently, I received my decoration, my damehood, from the Queen and she looked fabulous, strong and fit. I thought: “You’re remarkable.”
Will you be watching the royal wedding?
Definitely! I plan to watch it on television. A couple of friends will probably come round. We can drink a glass of champagne.
You don’t use your title on your book covers. Was that a conscious decision?
Yes. I made a conscious decision not to in 1969. My parents are also quite famous but you don’t see anything about my parentage there.
I thought, “I’ll be Antonia Fraser.” I remember that when Mary Queen of Scots was published, a schoolboy said to me, in that deliciously open way, “You just make use of your title, as the daughter of a lord.” I was able to hold up the book and say: “Find my title there.” I didn’t have a photograph, either.
In your memoir, Must You Go?, you say that you and your husband Harold Pinter were in the “bohemian class”.
I got so fed up with people saying, “You’re an aristocrat and he’s an East End Jew,” as if, at 42 and 44, we had remained exactly what we were when we were born. The preoccupation with class is the bad side of Englishness.
Did you approach writing the book in the same way as one of your biographies?
It was a heady moment when I realised that I was the only source and I didn’t have to read through references and give bibliographies. Then I realised I was the biographer, dealing with the creative artist. I saw that every time Harold picked up a pen, I had noted it.
So you felt that you were helping his legacy?
I didn’t think so at the time, absolutely not. It’s not the way you think, when you’re living happily with someone. Particularly not me. I was busy helping Oliver Cromwell and people like that. It’s only when I looked back that I realised how interested I had always been when he started to write and in whatever he told me. I don’t think many biographers have lived with a creative artist.
Was there always a plan for your career?
It was my plan. My mother thought I should go into the Foreign Office, which would have been a complete disaster, first of all for me and then for my country.
Is there anything you’d like to forget?
I’d like to forget some of the clothes I wore as a teenager.
Are we all doomed?
No. Optimists have a better life.
Must You Go? is now available in paperback (Phoenix; £8.99)
Defining Moments
1932 Born in London to the biographer Elizabeth and Frank Pakenham, politician, who became Earl of Longford in 1961
1956 Marries the Tory MP Hugh Fraser; they have three sons and three daughters
1969 Her first biography, Mary Queen of Scots, becomes a bestseller
1975 Begins affair with Harold Pinter. They marry in 1980. Pinter dies in 2008
2010 Publishes Must You Go?, a memoir of their life together
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