ANTONIA FRASER'S DIARY

One of the points of going to a dinner party, in my opinion, is to have an energetic debate. No, not a row. I hate rows and enjoy energetic debates. Indeed I am prepared to have a row, I mean a debate with anyone who can’t tell the difference. Thus at the elegant Holland Park house of novelist Katherine Bucknell, I found myself having an enjoyable E.D. on the subject of the Animals in War Memorial on the island between Park Lane and Hyde Park, unveiled in 2004. There’s a curved stone wall, with animals in bas-relief, then some heavily-laden bronze mules are struggling up steps, and a bronze horse and dog gaze into the distance. I love this monument deeply; I am moved by it every time I pass it which is almost daily, and especially by the lettering: THEY HAD NO CHOICE. I ponder for example on the nature of voluntary and involuntary courage. (The head of a security firm once told me that where a van-robbery is concerned, animals are often too brave in defence: men know when to submit for safety’s sake.) My neighbour at dinner, Nick Lezard on the other hand disagreed with me strongly on two grounds. First, he said the monument will do nothing to stop mistreatment of animals around the world. (Nonsense! Who knows what moment of revelation it might bring?) Secondly the monument is worthless because those for whom it is intended will never derive any comfort from it. But that is to suppose than animals have no after life: on that subject I am prepared to debate energetically with anyone that they do. Heaven is where the pets are (except I suppose they won’t exactly be pets any longer). Hell is where they are not.
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History Today had its annual prize-giving party in the War Cabinet Rooms. They are actually tucked away just off the Horseguards’ Parade at the bottom of some wide stone steps; but I mistakenly tried to reach them from Whitehall via King Charles Street – no unauthorised cars permitted. So I had the eerie experience of stumbling along on a dark and windy night down an empty street, empty that is except for numbers of armed policemen guarding the endangered Foreign Office. Ten minutes later I greeted the warm warren of the War Cabinet Rooms as an absolute haven: which is I suppose exactly what it was in wartime. William Hague received an award for his biography of Wilberforce and made a witty, self-deprecating speech. He was described by the editor of History Today as being in the long tradition of politician-writers, mentioning Churchill of course given where we were, and going back to the Earl of Clarendon at the time of the English Civil War. ‘What about Sir Thomas More?’ I hissed at my neighbour, Lucy Worsley of Historic Royal Palaces. ‘What about Chaucer?’ she countered, trumping me.
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I don’t think I can ever go and see Othello again after experiencing the ultimate production – for me – at the Donmar Theatre. If I were to go again, I believe the image of Chiwetel Ejiofor’s noble countenance enacting the doomed Moor would come between me and any new performance; several weeks later I am still shaken enough to read the play again as a kind of therapy. This is a strange moment in the London theatrical world. Marvellous vitality everywhere – and yet fine fringe theatres such as the Bush and the Orange Tree at Richmond were recently threatened with cuts which might have caused closure. A salute therefore to the enduring courage of Peter Hall who has managed to open the Rose at Kingston Theatre with Uncle Vanya after years of indomitable slogging away. I can’t help thinking that there must have been something special in the stars of the autumn of 1930 – something specially thespian. Harold Pinter and Peter Hall were born six weeks apart (10 October and 22 November respectively of that year) and both were only children brought up in working class households without any remote connection to the theatre. I like to think of some particular dramatic aspect, some conjunction or other to explain it, including their long partnership with each other; more fun than explaining it by hard work or anything dull like that. And by the way, it’s almost as easy to get to the Rose at Kingston as the West End these days, given the roadworks in the latter.
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I paid a magic visit to the V & A recently to inspect contemporary sixteenth fabrics since I am currently working on a life of Elizabeth I. In my childhood I dreaded the V & A as a sepulchral building with a frown on its face; now it beams at you so everyone beams back (also incidentally it’s open on Bank Holidays which is just when I often want to visit a museum on impulse). Susan North and Clare Brown, the kindly experts who showed me the materials explained that in the sixteenth century there was no distinction made between dress and furnishing fabrics. I recalled buying curtain material to make my own ball-gown in the post-war days of clothing coupons – I used absolutely hideous dark red damask spattered with gold stars which Queen Elizabeth might have got away with but I didn’t. My mother finally wrenched it away from me and turned it into cushions which were nothing if not durable for they are still going strong sixty years later. But of course the supreme example of that enterprising couture was Scarlett O’Hara taking down the dining room curtains to make a fabulous green dress in which to dazzle Rhett Butler into paying her debts.
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Still on the subject of right royal fashion, what is it about red footwear? I’ve just ordered another pair of red shoes from Anello & Davide in Beauchamp Place in case the four others in my cupboard should feel lonely. How right Proust’s Duc de Guermantes was to cry out ‘Oriane’ in horror when he found his wife going to dinner in a red dress and black shoes. It is true that Hans Andersen’s Red Shoes finally danced the poor ballerina to death but I bet she had a good time in them before that – at any rate Moira Shearer did in the movie. Then there are Judy Garland’s Ruby Slippers in The Wizard of Oz. The trademark of the great French shoemaker Christian Louboutin are the red soles which give an exotic flash as glamorous women walk by. Remember Naomi Campbell going to do her community service in Louboutin heels which she proceeded to change for heavy boots – that last defiant flash of red. (New shop just opening conveniently next to Scott’s restaurant for a real treat-day.) Louboutin is on record as wanting to make shoes like jewels – he does. Of course red soles as such have a long history: Queen Elizabeth according to her wardrobe accounts had plenty of shoes, ‘the soles with scarlet’. I particularly like the sound of a pair which were white, lined with crimson satin and scarlet soles. (Luckily she had overshoes for mud.) Is there any chance the present Queen would patronise Christian Louboutin and cheer us all up when she sits on a platform?