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Published on October 11, 2007

"I've always loved history," she says, "and for me, history means people."

As the guest keynote speaker at the 29th SEAWrite Awards tomorrow, she considers the annual event in people terms as well.

"I see the entire occasion as a forum that brings people together," she says.

For her, it's a world of writers whose experiences are little known outside the region. "It's exciting to be put in touch with other writers, to experience a cultural sharing."

She herself is the product of widely divergent backgrounds, her father a British army officer in South Africa and her mother born in India. Married to William Ward, the eighth Viscount Bangor since 1976, she now considers Ireland her home. "Bangor", after all, refers to the seat of the family's original lands, a chapel in Northern Ireland.

Bradford's work as an historian and biographer, however, seems to have chosen her.

"I've always written," she muses.

In her first job, at Christie's London, she valued manuscripts from the 15th to the 20th centuries, a path that led her to write her first biography, "Cesare Borgia: His Life and Times", in 1976. The book proved so popular that it became the source for the BBC series "The Borgias". Bradford's research also provided the basis for the more recent biography of Lucrezia Borgia.

Fluent in four languages - Portuguese, Italian, French and English - Bradford has also branched out into histories, writing "The Englishman's Wine - the Story of Port".

"I was the first woman to write on what is essentially a man's topic," she smiles.

 She has also written biographies of people from diverse backgrounds: "Disraeli", "Princess Grace", "George VI" and "Splendours and Miseries: The Life of Sacheverell Sitwell", the last written at the request of Sitwell's family.

She has also written two international bestsellers, "Elizabeth, a Biography of Her Majesty the Queen", and "America's Queen, The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis".

Her most recent biography is "Diana", which she wrote at the request of her publishers in time for the 10th anniversary of the Princess of Wales' death.

It is this latest work that understandably dominates the conversation.

"Think of a rather uneducated and unsophisticated girl reinventing herself in the light of world opinion," says Bradford.

While these works, especially the ones on well-known women, have attracted comment, one of the questions Bradford is asked by interviewers is, "Did you know Diana? Did you know Jackie? Did you know Princess Grace?"

"It's better, I think, for a biographer not to have known the person," she says. "Without that personal bias, you can gain greater insights to your subject, to understand their reactions to other people and to events."

Already considering what her next subject will be, she is nevertheless reluctant to discuss the project. "Someone 'not modern'," she says, "but I haven't yet decided."

Bradford spends her time on book tours, mainly in the US, and gives television and radio interviews as well as commentaries. In addition to travelling, Bradford enjoys gardening and studying gardens. She is also an avid football fan - "Liverpool, of course," she laughs.

Whatever free time she has between her SEAWrite commitments will be spent on increasing her knowledge of Thailand and the people.

"There's history here," she says.

Laurie Rosenthal

 The Nation