N January this year, Antonia Fraser woke up in hospital to find her six children surrounding the bed. ‘I thought, good heavens, anyone would think I was dying.’ It was, indeed, what they assumed; a priest had been summoned to give extreme unction. She had picked up an infection following surgery on a broken ankle. In the hospital? ‘Well, they don’t say—only the Almighty God would know and He was not in a very good mood. Anyway, my kidneys packed up and I just shut down. My poor family: they came from Mexico and France, my sister came to have a last view. I knew nothing of all
