Antonia Fraser

Diary – 15 March 2003

The pros and cons of Celebrity Recognition Phenomenon

A non-stop drive for housing: when my father, then Frank Pakenham, fought as Labour candidate for Oxford in 1945, he hired a pony and cart and, stuffing his numerous children in the back, set forth along the streets with this striking placard. Unfortunately, the pony came to an abrupt halt quite soon and would not be budged. The stop as opposed to the non-stop was commemorated in a photograph in the Oxford Mail. Such is the emotive power of photography that I remember it well, as Maurice Chevalier would say, including the discomfort of the crowded cart, the tiresome behaviour of my scowling siblings, my mother in the cheerful red Socialist mac she wore for electioneering (as opposed to the politically incorrect grey squirrel which was her usual wear). Ah yes, I remember it well.

Actually, I was not present. It was the Photographic Memory Phenomenon which makes me think I was: I’ve gazed at the image so often that I know I must have been there. I was in fact at boarding school, although I had much enjoyed canvassing in the holidays. I knew we would win – we being the Labour party, of course, but also my father, facing the sitting Tory MP Quintin Hogg. Returning to Oxford station from my boarding school in Salisbury on the day the poll was declared, I therefore did something incredibly audacious – by our family standards – and took a taxi back to my north Oxford home. This was in order to sweep triumphantly past the town hall, see the great banner which would undoubtedly be hanging there – Pakenham first, Hogg second. Alas, my triumphal progress came to a halt, much like the pony cart, when I saw that Hogg had actually beaten Pakenham by 2,800 votes. As I burst into tears, I was crying as much for myself as for my father: me, who would shortly have to explain to my irate mother why I had taken a taxi in the first place, intelligence I had hoped to slip sideways into the rejoicing household at 8 Chadlington Road.

I learned a valuable lesson about elections from this experience.

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