Dancing with the stars

SIR: Gyles Brandreth may have met both T S Eliot and Charles de Gaulle (April issue): but I must modestly point out that I danced with both T S Eliot and Lyndon Johnson (I met De Gaulle but he did not ask me to dance, perhaps because there was no music in Westminster Hall, where he had just addressed MPS and their wives).

T S Eliot attended the inaugural Ball of the Anglo-german Association, founded after the war as a gesture of reconciliation with the civilian population by my father, then Frank Pakenham, Labour minister in charge of Germany, and Victor Gollancz. He danced in a splendid East Coast manner: firm grip; politely interested questions about my future – I was about to go up to Oxford.

Lyndon Johnson was Vice-president and, in the summer of 1963, attended a ceremony of Caribbean independence, where my then husband Hugh Fraser was representing the British government. He was surrounded by stern, visibly armed protectors, which, to us gullible fools, in the summer before JFK was killed, seemed quite unnecessary.

It appeared to be impossible to get anywhere near him. So Andrew Devonshire, representing the Queen as I remember, bet me that I wouldn’t get to dance with the Vice-president.

Fortunately I had spied Philip Kaiser, a contemporary of Hugh’s at Balliol, in the Johnson entourage. I wheedled my way towards him and begged to be allowed one dance with the great man, promising I would not say a word. In time, Philip duly nodded across the ballroom floor and I was on! This time, the grip was even firmer, the man even bigger, and away we whirled.

But I’m afraid I broke my word. I couldn’t help it. ‘I think Mrs Ladybird Johnson looks absolutely lovely tonight,’ I whispered up into his ear. ‘Yah do, do yah?’ said the Vice-president extremely loudly. After that, we completed the dance in silence.

Andrew Devonshire duly paid up, like the gentleman he was. Lady Antonia Fraser, London W8