Antonia Fraser

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2008

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the writer Antonia Fraser. Born Antonia Pakenham, the eldest of eight children, it was while growing up in Oxford that she became fascinated with the past and would make daily trips to the town's library to fuel her passion for history. With seven brothers and sisters it was, she says, "something of mine". Her father, Lord Longford, was a classicist and their lives were rich with interesting visitors like John Betjeman, William Beveridge and Isaiah Berlin. Both her parents stood unsuccessfully as Labour candidates.

An internationally regarded historian, her best-selling books are credited with bringing the past to life, full of painstakingly researched detail and strong narrative. Her first job was in publishing, working for George Weidenfeld and then marrying the Tory MP Hugh Fraser. She wrote the first of her best selling historical biographies, Mary Queen of Scots in 1969 while the mother of six young children - "the little baby enjoyed the sound of the typewriter".

Along with her husband, Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter, she has been at the centre of London's literati for well over 30 years. Her writing is still "place of solitude and a solace".

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: 3rd Movement of Piano Concerto No. 23 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: The complete works by Walter Scott Luxury: Strings and strings of false pearls.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Nicola Cochlin. Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them. My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right. In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world. Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey, history's youngest heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin.
0:27.8	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:30.3	Hello, I'm Krista Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:35.3	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The program was
0:39.0	originally broadcast in 2008. My castaway this week is the writer Antonia Fraser.
1:01.0	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.
1:12.6	And along with her husband, the playwright Harold Pinter, she has been at the very centre of London's literati for well over 30 years.
1:18.9	The eldest daughter of a family of literary Longfords, her love affair with the past, started
1:24.0	young. It was as a schoolgirl running to and from the local library that her private
1:29.9	passion began. History, she says, was like a huge playground. It was just a delight. I'm wondering,
1:38.2	Antonio Fraser, as you sit there, and it takes you years to do the research for these great
1:42.5	historical books that you write, how much of
1:44.9	a playground it feels when you have piles of manuscripts and papers to look through these days?
1:49.8	I think the moment when it's not quite such a playground is when you have to sit down and
1:54.0	actually write the book and make sense of it all. But I love research. I do all my own research
2:00.0	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.
2:13.4	And do you say when you come to writing, I think this must be quite an unusual way of writing. You do your research quite often for three or four years.
2:19.0	Yes.
2:19.6	And then you sit down and write.
2:21.3	You don't research and write at the same time.
2:23.8	No, I don't, but I know numbers of people who I respect very much, including my mother, Elizabeth Longford, who research and write.
2:31.6	You see, I can't do that.
	...

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