He was also a vociferous campaigner against the Iraq war, branding Tony Blair a 'mass murderer'. Pinter's influential plays, including The Caretaker in 1960 and The Homecoming in 1965, were regarded as among the finest of the past 50 years and enjoyed a recent renaissance as audiences tapped into his dark studies of tedious lives balancing on the edge of chaos. Speaking of their life with Pinter in her Holland Park home, she said: 'We were the perfect married couple. 'I spent half my teens reading really heavy history books and the other half reading Barbara Cartland, God bless her.' 'Some lucky people find it early, but perhaps I felt this is the little girl who was waiting for Prince Charming or whatever.

'Deep down I felt this is the romantic love for which I have been waiting all my life, but I didn't put it like that to myself. In an interview with the February edition of Tatler magazine, on sale from Thursday, she said: 'Harold had a very strong character. She has written Must You Go?: My Life With Harold Pinter, which is to be serialised in the Daily Mail. Her marriage was dissolved amicably in 1977 and Pinter moved in with her. Lady Antonia, a critically acclaimed biographer, was 42, a mother of six and married to Conservative MP Sir Hugh Fraser when her affair with Pinter began.

It later emerged that during his marriage to Miss Merchant, Pinter had had a seven-year affair with TV presenter Joan Bakewell. Their only child Daniel stopped talking to his father 15 years before Pinter died from cancer aged 78 on Christmas Eve 2008.

Must you go? by Antonia Fraser