Hindley claimed to have repented and this is why Longford campaigned against her life sentence, she explains. Lord Longford “was interested in penitents,” laughs Fraser when I visit her in London.

Lord Longford, an Oxford don, author, politician and campaigner for the underdog, is, unfortunately, best known today for his unsuccessful attempts to secure the release of Myra Hindley, the female half of the notorious Moors Murderers. Lady Elizabeth Longford (who died in 2002) is revered in Britain as one of the country’s greatest historical biographers.

They were also extraordinarily talented and charismatic individuals. Despite the grand Anglo-Irish title and the glorious ancestry that could be traced back to England’s greatest general, the Duke of Wellington, Fraser’s parents were committed socialists and Catholics. She was born in 1932, the oldest of eight children of the earl and countess of Longford. Long before she met Pinter, Fraser was a glittering member of the London literati. Unconsciously, perhaps, Fraser reveals more about what Pinter saw in her than what she saw in him.Ĭritics have always been as fascinated with Fraser herself as with her literary output. In contrast to the serious, scholarly mien that cloaks her usual nonfiction, this book is rich with poetry and pathos. However, her 24th book, Must You Go?, a loving memoir of her life with the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, is her greatest yet. Lady Antonia Fraser-Pinter is the author of 13 works of nonfiction and 10 novels.

Must you go? by Antonia Fraser