It was over lunch at Le Poule au Pot towards the end of July that I suggested that Lady Antonia Fraser might give the Catholic Herald an interview to commemorate her 90th birthday at the end of August.
“Yes, of course!” she exclaimed, with characteristic enthusiasm. “But not until it’s come and gone – you know, just in case.” Although a distinctive floral walking-stick has now been added to her ever-glamorous couture, she remains as sharp as a knife.
And so we find ourselves, a season later, in front of the fire in what one of the glossier coffee-table magazines would no doubt call “her gracious drawing room in Notting Hill”. We are not alone, for Antonia is attended constantly by Ferdinand and Isabella, two large cats of pleasant disposition named – of course – after the Catholic monarchs of Aragon and Castile, and the first rulers of a united Spain.
