Lady Antonia Fraser

This is the room at the top of the house on the fourth floor, which used to be my six children’s nursery, and I always loved it. It’s got windows facing two ways, west and east, and I always thought it was rather wasted on them. I call it my eerie rather than my study, because it’s so high up.

I love many things about it. I love the double light. I love the comparative tranquillity. It’s more tranquil than anywhere else in the house. I think the only tidy thing in here should be in my brain. And so when I decorated it I thought I’d make it like a, a bedroom in an Edwardian country house and have a really pretty, charming old-fashioned wall paper with roses and blue bows. And then gradually the piles mount up and the books mount up, but it’s still, I think, got a sort of country feel to it. 

I like to work surrounded by what I call the tools of my trade. I’ve got these files here and then I’ve got my marvellous patterned notebooks. I’m absolutely devoted to them.  I must have about 200 by now, ‘cause I do about 20 for each subject. 

This is one of my notebooks for a book about The Gunpowder Plot. It’s rather fascinating looking into something one worked on a long time ago. And I see underlinings here, there and everywhere. Well I must stop reading it, otherwise I’ll want to write another book about The Gunpowder Plot. 

I’m a passionate listener to music.  I vary it. I try to fit it to the subject. When I was working on Love And Louis XIV I listened to a lot of [Luli] and [Lalandre]. And when I was working on Marie Antoinette I listened to [Gluck]. And I find it very inspiring. 

I consider this workspace to be totally private. Luckily, it’s so high up that I don’t get many passing visitors to put it mildly. Harold occasionally comes up, and…but I think he’s aware that he has visiting status only. But he also has a rather maddening habit of shutting the window, ‘cause I like the window open. I think sort of fresh air is very important for the brain. I’m just so used to doing it. 

I light a scented candle first thing in the morning. I think that’s good for the brain as well. 

There’s the magic moment when I move from the research stage to the writing, and that’s when I move from the sofa and the notes to the electric typewriter. And I bought this typewriter with my earnings from Mary Queen of Scots sort of nearly 40 years ago, and it’s so old that I have to get spare parts from other typewriters. Nevertheless, that’s the way I do it and that’s the way I intend to keep on doing it. 

I’m surrounded with paperweights, which I certainly need. I think this is my very favourite.  Red glass. It was given to me when I was ten for my birthday by my Great Uncle, Lord Dunsany, the Irish poet. And he rolled it down an Irish bank and the sun glinted on it. And I think about that well over 60 years later. I love it.  I always put it on top of the stack of written manuscript. I think one does become a bit superstitious with one’s little routines.