My History: A Memoir of Growing Up

Abstract

Lady Antonia Fraser's relationship and subsequent marriage to Harold Pinter was the stuff of tabloids during the 1980s. But Lady Antonia's My History: A Memoir of Growing Up makes it clear that she and her family had been making headlines long before her relationship and subsequent marriage to Harold Pinter. The book documents her childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, marriage to first husband Hugh Fraser, and concludes with the publication of her successful book, Mary Queen of Scots, in 1969. The memoir offers a look into not only her life during this time but also the cultural trends or currents in England before, during, and after World War II. Lady Antonia's fine attention to details of the era, as well as her honest appraisal of herself and her family, make for delightful reading. Her humor is dry and her insight deep.Born August 27, 1932, Lady Antonia identifies her “home” as Oxford, though she was not technically born there, and her family did not move to Oxford until she was three. But Oxford's influence reverberates through her life as effectively as the bells reverberate through the town. She learned to love learning, politics, writing, but most of all history. In 1936 she was given a copy of Our Island History by H. E. Marshall, a collection of stories that offered children a history of England from its beginnings to the death of Queen Victoria. As she read the book, she became so entranced with history that she dubs the study and discipline “hers.” It is not just history. It is “her history,” so the title of memoir takes on double meaning—her memoir, but also an account of “her history” and its importance to her entire life.Her family, too, fueled her interests. Politically active, her parents were on opposing sides of an election at the time they were married, with her father supporting the Tory candidate and her mother supporting Labour. While both eventually came to serve the same political side, the “outstandingly happy” marriage was fueled by “deep affection that never failed nor did the lively conversation” (8). Eventually, her father, through some deeply disappointing elections and complex peerage laws, landed in the House of Lords where he served for over fifty-five years. And it is through his entrance into the House of Lords that Lady Antonia became Lady Antonia when she was just entering her teenage years.While her parents became involved in politics, Lady Antonia was content to watch but more interested in reading: “Neither financial gain nor public contempt mattered to me half as much as the inestimable freedom of reading what I liked, when I liked, devouring books—and all of this independent of grown-ups” (36). With eight children to raise, Lady Antonia's mother was an important figure in the family's life but also a woman perhaps ahead of her time. She enlisted nannies, continued her political career, and thereby modelled an independent maternal role.With the coming of the war, the family moved to Water Eaton, outside of Oxford, where they lived with other families, namely Teresa Carr-Saunders, a devout Catholic who inspired Lady Antonia's conversion years later. At the end of that year, they moved to North Oxford where Lady Antonia was informed that she would attend school: “But it's a boy's school,” she said. “Yes,” said her mother (75).Technically “the Dragon,” as the school was known, had just gone co-ed, but there were few young women in attendance. The school emphasized sport, but Latin and Greek were the academic backbones of the school. After, this experience, Lady Antonia was sent to boarding school, which she did not care for, and, once again, she found salvation in “her history.” While looking through her family's library, she found William Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which further fueled her interest in history.With her conversion to Catholicism and her time at St. Mary's Ascot, her reading moved toward Catholic authors such as G. K. Chesterton, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and The Song of Bernadette by Franz Werfel. She also discovered Strachey's Emminent Victorians, and found a copy of a “book proof of a new novel” (Brideshead Revisited) by one of their family's friends, “Evelyn Waugh” (174).Her time at St. Mary's, however, was not without its extratextual lessons. She, for example, applied to become one of the Children of Mary, a school club dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Her participation would result in a blue ribbon and medal upon graduation. To join? “The qualities were not quite clear but presumed to include piety and general good behavior” (176). She was denied, however, not because she was a convert but because, as the top student in the school, her contemporaries said she was “a law unto herself” (176). The sisters took matters into their hands, and they made sure she became a Child of Mary; but, in true nunlike fashion, reminded her that her admission came through their works, presumably on behalf of God, not through Lady Antonia's own cleverness or efforts.Upon graduation from St. Mary's Ascot, Lady Antonia took a “gap year,” which turned into two. She joined public life and was presented at court, though her mother was less than helpful. As a socialist and feminist, her mother did not attend to the details of “coming out,” as other mothers did, but Lady Antonia prevailed and entered society by meeting many luminaries, including Queen Elizabeth II.Lady Antonia then entered Oxford because simply that was what her mother expected; it was something young women did. Of course, that was not the case, so Lady Antonia and her mother are exceptional in this regard. At Oxford, Lady Antonia studied history and met a serious love interest, Patrick Lindsay, but they both realized that they were not meant for one another. At this time, she began writing about the “Making of Ententes,” a period in the early twentieth century and the alliances made among various European countries. Coincidentally, her father had written about this period, and she soon discovered a deeper appreciation for her bookish father: “It marked a new stage in our relationship and an exciting one: suddenly my beloved but abstracted parent reading a book who left all decisions to my mother, was transformed into a vigorous, argumentative historian who enjoyed debating the subject as much as I did” (239).Upon graduating from Oxford, she took a job with the publisher George Weidenfeld. Through him, she met more people from the London arts scene such as Harold Nicolson (author of Some People), Sonia Orwell, Angus Wilson, Cecil Beaton, Hugh Thomas, and Evelyn Waugh. But most of her days were spent with friends and their own much less lavish dinner parties. They drank cheap wine and attended the opera and theater. She had a brief relationship with Michael Alexander who even dedicated one of his books to her, but as she explains, “I wish I could say that this romantic message was echoed by his single minded devotion to me in private life,” but there were other women, so the two parted ways (256).She wrote a version of the legend of King Arthur for children and cont- inued her work with the publishing house. She met Hugh Fraser and fell in love with him, a Tory MP, whose politics raised some eyebrows in her family home but did not result in any serious conflict. They married and she fashioned her wedding dress in the style of Mary Queen of Scots. After being married seven years and having had nearly the same number of children, Lady Antonia decided to write “her history.” Her mother was visiting and a friend suggested that Lady Antonia's mother she write a book on Mary Queen of Scots. Lady Antonia challenged her mother, “she's my Mary Queen of Scots” (286), and her mother acquiesced and gives her the Queen.According to Lady Antonia, she had written many works before, but this book was something that she really cared about. Further Hugh and she “needed money badly” (287). She had five children, and her earlier writings did not bring in that much income. Without much discussion of the writing process, Lady Antonia notes that the book was published in 1969, and the first review panned the work, but subsequent reviews were stellar, and the book became an “astonishing success” (299). Lady Antonia concludes her memoir with a reflection on Mary Queen of Scots: As time passed, I would come to see the Queen's motto, “In my End is my Beginning” which she herself had embroidered at Sheffield on the royal cloth of state over her head, as particularly moving and deserving my grateful acknowledgement: in her end after all was my beginning. (301) The conclusion not only highlights the importance of reading during childhood and the effect it can have on adult life, but it also illustrates Lady Antonia's passion for her own writing and research. Harold Pinter peeps in periodically, but this is truly “her history.”