Features

An enduring love relationship that started with a question

Published

3 years ago

2023/10/22

“He looked at me with those amazing, extremely bright eyes. ‘Must you go?’ he said. ‘No, it’s not absolutely essential’ I said.” This in spite of her heavy household duties as wife of a politician and mother of six children. He gave her a lift home having stayed on till 2.30 am at the party long over. She invited him in and they shared Champagne till 6 in the morning. “… but of course the real recklessness was mine.”

That is somewhat the beginning of Antonia Fraser’s diary style biography Must you go? My Life with Harold Pinter, Doubleday, 2010, 328 p. The Times comment as given on the back cover reads: “Neither autobiography nor biography but a love story, romantic, poignant and very funny, illuminating her husband’s character and creativity.” The Observer: “Unremittingly delicious: strange, rarefied and frequently hilarious.” I found the book absorbingly interesting,

gently tugging heart strings, often joyful, at the end unbearably sad; giving insights to the theatre and people of the time (1975 – 2008). It’s all about Harold Pinter and their life together with bits coming in about Antonia Fraser – her writing and family, as they cohabited for five years totally disregarding family and societal censure and gossip, until Pinter’s wife finally consented to a divorce and they married. They were together for thirty three and a half years; the attraction and love for each other unchanged, the literary successes for both mounting with Pinter crowning it all with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005.

Biographer – She

The author’s full name and title are: Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, CH, DBE, FRSL. She is listed as a British author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction. She was born in 1932 to Frank Pakenham, Seventh Earl of Longford and Elizabeth Longford, who also was a well-known biographer whose autobiography The Pebbled Shore, I read recently. In 1956 Antonia married Major the Right Hon. Sir Hugh Fraser MBE, MP and Under Secretary for the Colonies in 1960-62. She writes she was “happy in her marriage” in spite of her husband lacking “emotional intimacy and preferring detachment.”

She was a devoted mother to their six children; she too having been in a large family. She was already an acknowledged author at age 40 when she met Harold Pinter – rising theatre actor, playwright, director and film screen writer. She admits she was impressed when twice she saw him previous to their meeting at the party given by her sister to mark the first night of Pinter’s The Birthday Party. She had been promised a lift home so when it was time to leave with her friends, she said she would say her goodbyes to the chief guest. Then ensued the question he asked and her acquiescing answer pushing aside all the chores needed to be done as preparation for her children’s school day and husband’s day in Parliament.

One strong impression I got was that Antonia is a generous and good-at-heart person. Never does she fault a person or write maliciously. Not a word of complaint or blame on Vivien Merchant who maligned her and was cruel in not giving Harold a divorce while their marriage had long been on the rocks, mostly due to her tantrums and excessive drinking, I surmise. No airs at all in Antonia, though of distinguished lineage.

Biographee – He

Harold Pinter was born in 1930 to a Jewish tailor of London’s East End in a working class area. He attended a local school, then studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1948, but left before the course was over to join a repertory company as a professional actor. After 1956 he began his writing career, his first attempts being the one act stage plays The Room and The Dumb Waiter. He was influenced by Samuel Becket and his Theatre of the Absurd method. Pinter’s first full length play was The Birthday Party in which he introduced his particular styles of understatement, small talk, reticence, even silences; theatrical devises used to indicate the substance of a character’s thoughts. He was soon considered one of the most outstanding playwrights internationally and much in demand as a theater director/producer and screenwriter.

He married actress Vivien Merchant in 1956, a year older than him and had one son who soon was estranged from Harold and though later Antonia and her elder children attempted drawing him into the family, did not respond. He changed his name not wanting to bask in Pinter publicity and did not attend his father’s funeral. About his wife Pinter told Antonia, which she recorded in her diary and later book: “…That he had never been in love before, but once loved Vivien very much, her essential vulnerability inspiring him with a wish to protect her, before other matters drove them apart.” She seemed to be a very difficult woman, almost paranoid though Antonia does not once write ill of her nor blame her. She was very nasty to Antonia, refused to divorce Harold and took to drinking heavily. She died of alcoholism in 1982, aged 58.

Book

In the Preface, Antonia makes clear that her book is based on her diaries she kept since October 1968 “when I suffered from withdrawal symptoms after finishing my first historical biography Mary Queen of Scots.” She also used recollections and conversations remembered, and quoted Harold. She ends her one paged Preface with: “Harold and I lived together from August 1975 until his death thirty three and a half years later on Christmas Eve 2008. ‘O! call back yesterday; bid time return’ cries one of his courtiers to Richard II. This is my way of doing so.”

The fact that the narrative is staccato-like being quoted or referred to diary entries, long and short interspersed with a couple of long passages, does not mar the enjoyment of reading it. For me, the love story which it really is, moved smoothly. I was amused, touched with tinges of sorrow, more so at the end and also enjoyed all their travels. People from the theatre and film worlds of Britain and Hollywood; politicians including Prime Ministers; those of the aristocracy and socially elite; even Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles are referred to; some at length, some passingly. Thus the greater draw of the book to me.

The style of writing is informal, almost a friendly conversation at times, and Pinter particularly emerges as a real person whom the reader almost sees, so well captured are his dynamism and cleverness.

He and she together

Their relationship can be summed up as a very deep and devoted, passionate love affair that did not dim nor admit conflict or fade away. It would have changed from passion to caring but it was strong through the entire 33 years they were together. They would have faced plenty nasty music when they decided to live together. Her mother and others warned Antonia that Harold was not the marrying kind. Pinter had had his affairs and one strong, but Antonia brushed that aside with admitting she too had had her dalliances. He integrated well with her large family.

Another talked about inappropriateness was the social disparity – one of working class origin and the other near aristocracy. However they hit if off well and she met often his parents whom he settled well in life.

Pinter was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in 2001 and underwent surgery and immense suffering. He was cleared of the cancer but developed other complications and was in and out of hospital, but valiantly was on stage: acting, reading or receiving honours and felicitations; Antonia and her children always at his side. He died seven years later.

Pinter catered fully to the romantic in her – constantly gifting her expensive jewellery and flowers. He wrote several poems to her, his first a burst of love and his last:

I shall miss you so much when I’m dead
The loveliest of smiles
The softness of your body in our bed
My everlasting bride….

Antonia’s October 11, 2008, diary entry goes thus: “At times Harold issued poignant apologies along the lines: ‘I know I’m not the gallant you married’ to which I would reply perfectly correctly: ‘And I’m not the romantic beauty you married.’ Both statements were true.”

She then quotes: “The truest lines on love that Shakespeare ever wrote, and I have always thought absolutely appropriate to us in these last years.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds.”

The final paragraph in Antonia Fraser Pinter’s biography/memoir reads thus:

“I leant forward and found no breath. He looked white and dead. I sat for a while. Then I kissed him. His dear body was already quite cold. Must you go? Yes, it was time. Before I left the room, after another last kiss, I said ‘Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing you to your rest.’”

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Features

The Division Bell Mystery

Published

2 days ago

2026/05/29

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 3

The murder, in a private dining room in the house, is of a financier with whom the government was negotiating a loan. When this seemed difficult the Minister of Home Affairs agreed to lead discussions, since he had known Mr Oissel the financier when they were young. Hence the private dinner, but when the Minister stepped out for a vote, Oissel was shot just as the Division Bell rang.

The Brahms and Simon detective novels, the first of which I wrote about last week, were amongst several books by the pair that Robert Scoble gave me when I was in Australia towards the end of last year. Amongst them was another thriller of a very different sort, though that too was written and set between the wars.

Called The Division Bell Mystery, it was set in the House of Commons, the first such book I believe, and was by Ellen Wilkinson, a Labour MP who became Minister of Education in Attlee’s government after the war, having served previously as Parliamentary Private Secretary to several ministers. Her hero Robert West is also a PPS, but a conservative, and his Minister, of Home Affairs, is an old style aristocrat, not much loved by the less orthodox Prime Minister, who nevertheless needs his support on many occasions.

The murder, in a private dining room in the house, is of a financier with whom the government was negotiating a loan. When this seemed difficult the Minister of Home Affairs agreed to lead discussions, since he had known Mr Oissel the financier when they were young. Hence the private dinner, but when the Minister stepped out for a vote, Oissel was shot just as the Division Bell rang.

West was just outside the door when the shot was heard, and when he opened it saw only the dead body with a revolver beside it. The assumption that this was suicide was however challenged by Oissel’s grand-daughter Annette, who was his heir, on the grounds that he would never have killed himself. But her view was given greater credence by the Inspector put in charge of the case who said there were no burn marks on the body which would have been the case had Oissel fired the pistol himself.

Matters are complicated by the fact that Oissel’s flat had been burgled while he was at dinner, and Jenks the policeman allocated to him, who had served the Home Secretary and seemed more acceptable to Oissel than someone from the Security Service, had been killed. Matters get even more complicated when Annette says her grand-father’s notebook in which he wrote his secrets in cipher was missing.

That was found in Jenks’ pocket, and then a photographer came to West to say he had been asked by Jenks to photograph this. More worryingly for West, he finds in the Home Secretary’s drawer a few pages from the notebook with what appears to be an interpretation of the cipher.

Ellen

Overwhelmed by all this he confides in a recently created peer who knows all about the business world, who insists that they leave the house party at which they had met over dinner and discuss the matter with the Prime Minister who promptly summons the Home Secretary.

But the Home Secretary had gone to Scotland to launch a ship over the weekend, so the meeting could take place only on the morning of the Monday, when difficult questions were expected on the adjournment motion. He admits at the meeting that he had got Jenks to take the notebook, and also that he knew the code since it had been created by him and Oissel when they were young.

He thought he should resign, and even contemplated suicide, but the Prime Minister told him that that would be even worse for the government, and that he should go home to bed. The Prime Minister said that he himself would handle the question, which he did with aplomb, insisting that confidentiality was needed until the inquest. What had happened would be made clear then, he declared, leaving West and Inspector Blackit and Lord Dalbeattie what seemed the impossible task of solving the murder.

Dalbeattie had suggested that West ask a female Labour MP who was very fond of him to get what information she could from the staff. That there was some involvement there had become clear when West, going back late one night to collect a briefcase he had left in a dining room, found someone lurking in the dark in the corridor outside the private rooms. Room J, where the murder had happened, was meant to be guarded throughout by a policeman, but he had left the room having felt dizzy, and it seemed that his coffee had been drugged. West’s sudden appearance however had prevented anyone else getting into the room.

Dalbeattie decides to recreate the scene of the murder and has a dinner party in Room J on the Tuesday night, inviting West and Annette and the society hostess at whose house he had met, and also Patrick Kinnaird, an MP who was engaged to Annette, as well as the Permanent Secretary to the Home Ministry.

After coffee Inspector Blackit comes in with Grace, the Labour MP who had got the confidence of the staff, and a journalist who had also been helpful, and just as they say they think they are on the track the division bell rings. Grace jumps up and tells the Inspector that that provides the solution and they get a ladder, and sure enough find the revolver in the space where the bell is. Directed at the place where Oissel had sat, it had been primed to go off with the ringing of the bell. The waiter who had helped to set things up made clear who the murderer had been.

The reason for the murder and the confused motives of all those involved made for a fascinatingly intricate mix. But also impressive in the book were the descriptions of the isolation possible in the crowded premises of the house, the forceful characterization of the members – Grace based on the writer, the society hostess based on Nancy Astor, the first female MP – and the laid back nature of senior politicians which West realized had to change in the brave new world of high finance.

Features

The challenge of keeping value-based politics alive

Published

3 days ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Anti-migrant protests in Durban, South Africa. BBC

The current outbreak of anti-immigrant protests in Durban, South Africa is bound to have taken many a subscriber to value-based politics or political idealism quite by surprise. After all, this is evidence that despite the historic accomplishments of nation-builders of the stature of the late President Nelson Mandela it cannot be taken for granted that identity politics, including racism in its worst forms, is no more in South Africa.

At the time of this writing details are scarce on the substantive root causes of the protests but it could very well be that economic grievances, particularly on the part of the majority community in South Africa, are contributing considerably to the disaffection. Shrinking employment and material prospects are likely to figure majorly among the factors igniting the unrest.

Fortunately, the local authorities in Durban are losing no time in calling for peaceful co-existence among the relevant communities and are pointing to the vital importance of stepping-up national integration processes. Apparently, immigrants in sizable numbers from neighbouring countries are present in Durban. However, international TV footage of the protests quoted some local authorities as saying that the majority of the immigrants in some centres that housed them were not illegal migrants and had the documents that entitle them to be in Durban.

In the Durban protests the world has fresh proof of the socially divisive consequences of the gathering globe-wide economic disaffection, touched off particularly by the continuing crisis in West Asia. Going ahead, the world would need to brace for increasing identity-based unrest of the kind it is just witnessing in South Africa.

Considering that the material lot of ordinary people everywhere could only aggravate progressively, with the US and Iran showing no signs of negotiating an end to their confrontation any time soon, it will be left to the more democratic and progressive sections of the world community to initiate positive measures collectively to bring a measure of relief to the discontented.

The swiftness with which such relief will be provided would depend crucially on the importance those sections taking up these undertakings attach to value-based politics as opposed to Realpolitik of power politics.

Going by these yardsticks, Italy could be considered to be moving in the right direction. Recently Italy came to the fore in initiating the collective named, ‘Rome Coalition for Food Security and Access to Fertilizer’, which has as one of its aims the swift provision of fertilizer to economically weak African countries.

In a recent statement Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Antonio Tajani, said that a principal aim of the project was to ensure that the farmers of Africa gained easy access to fertilizer, considering that food security is a growing concern among some of Africa’s economically vulnerable countries.

The statement went on to mention that some 30 countries hailing from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, the Balkans as well as the FAO had been invited to join the coalition. The venture is far-seeing in that food security is main among the reasons for social discontent which in turn could degenerate into endemic political turmoil and bloodshed. Separatist violence and geographical fragmentation of countries wouldn’t be too far behind these developments, as Africa itself has often proved.

It is hoped that more G7 countries would take the cue from Italy and do what they could to ease the hardships of economically distressed countries, particularly of the global South. In these efforts they would need to break rank with the US, which is today brutally indifferent to the consequences of its policy of making ‘America First’, come what may.

Going by current developments, the Trump administration seems to be blithely oblivious to the wider, deleterious effects of its policy course in West Asia. Besides rendering Iran militarily and otherwise impotent nothing else seems to matter to Washington, as regards West Asia. This is policy short-sightedness of an extreme kind. After all, right now West Asia could be said to be sitting on the proverbial powder keg.

On the other hand, Iran is not giving the world the impression that it is doing anything constructive to get out of the policy straitjacket that it wove for itself decades ago. Rather than enter into a policy of ‘live and let live’ in relation to Israel in particular and initiate a process of reconciliation with the latter, it has chosen to operate within policy parameters that continue to damn Israel. This has put Israel always on the ‘defensive’ so to speak and prevented the opening up of space for meaningful dialogue.

That said, Israel is obliged to explore the possibilities of entering into a negotiatory process with the Arab-Islamic world that could lead to a de-escalation of tensions and bloodshed. It cannot continue to look at its neighbours through lenses that distort them as archetypal enemies who should be ‘wiped off completely from the face of the earth.’

In other words, the need is urgent for Realpolitik to give way to value-based politicks. Italy is beginning to prove that the latter approach could be pursued with some success. May be the EU and the UK could throw their weight behind these initiatives as well and establish that international politics could be refashioned on the basis of humane, civilized norms. The UN would need to be fully supportive of these moves and prove an organizational nucleus of the operations that follow.

In fact the time is ripe for people of conscience to collectively stand up on the side of peace and say ‘No’ to war and violence. Organizations such as the ICRC, the WHO and Medicines Sans Frontiers have already taken up this call. Referring to the widespread destruction of health facilities and their dehumanizing results these organizations have said, among other things, that ‘This is not a failure of the law. It is a failure of political will.’

True, ‘failure of political will’ among those powers that matter accounts for the runaway, uncontrollable nature of war and destruction in contemporary times, but more fundamentally it is a failure of the human conscience. It could very well be that the phenomenal levels to which violence and war have been unleashed today have had the effect of deadening consciences. This is a matter for urgent study and wide discussion.

Features

Vesak celebrations … with Cuteefly

Published

3 days ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions // Gift pack

I would describe Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka as innovative and creative, and she operates under the name of Cuteefly.

Indunil always comes up with something novel to celebrate special occasions, and she does it with candles … and that’s her profession.

She was in the spotlight when she created a happening scene, with candles, for Christmas, Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and Valentine’s Day.

As lanterns light up Sri Lanka for Vesak, the Colombo-based candle maker is quietly turning wax and wick into little pieces of the festival.

Candles reflecting Vesak themes

Her candles reflect Vesak themes – light, peace, remembrance, giving, etc., to enable you to fill your Vesak celebration with devotion and beauty.

Among her Vesak creations is a lotus-shaped soy candle, scented with sandalwood, lavender, etc., meant to burn during this Vesak Poya Day.

Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka: Customers
praise her for her creativity

These handcrafted Vesak candles are perfect for offering at the temple, she says.

What makes her creations so novel is that they come in different shapes, scents, themes, and all are handmade.

What’s more, her customers have heaped praise on her for her creativity.

According to Indunil, her creations are perfect as a thoughtful gift … to bring beauty, unity, and light into every moment.

Says Indunil: “Our beautifully handcrafted Unity candles are designed with premium detail and love, making them perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions.”

Cuteefly, says Indunil, is available online.

Readers could contact Indunil on 0778506066 for more details.

He Facebook Page is: Cuteefly.