Dennis Waterman's daughter talks of rows with Rula

I remember my brother and I used to sit at the top of our stairs listening to my mum and dad arguing and crying our eyes out…☹️?

Would’ve been about seven and eight then I think

I really feel for anyone like this.

My parents generally had a very good marriage, but I do remember very audible rows when I was child (often about money) being dreadfully upsetting.

I vowed that I would never do that to my children, and thankfully never have, though should add that luckily there has very rarely been cause to.

From DW’s own accounts he hit RL, so it went beyond what I would describe as ’rows’.

I don’t think there is any need for the daughter to takeover it now he’s dead though.

I won't go there!

My mum and stepfather her 2nd husband had some awful arguments and my siblings and I used to hide in our bedroom terrified. I used to cuddle them all. It’s used to come to blows at times. We were always scared whenever drink was involved too and nearly all my life I wouldn’t celebrate new year because of some bad memories.
As a result my husband and I never argued because I refused too we just wouldn’t speak. I never wanted my children to hear an argument and experience the terror I felt as a child.

That should have been ’rake over it’!

Yes.
I used to lie in bed listening to it all and yearn to be grown up and able to leave home.

I used to lie in bed with my fingers in my ears and a pillow over my head to blot out my mother's cries as she was abused and beaten. I would pray that a policeman would come to the door to tell us that our 'father' had died.

Night
(From our beds between awake and asleep)

Beneath us now, our parents shout and swear.
Then silence, ice-cold with hostility.
We hold hands, and our breath; and gauge the air;
Listen, impotent, to the enmity
We know so well; the same old words with their
Circular relentless futility.
The unpredictable unresolved warfare.
Beneath us now our parents shout and swear

Unbidden pretence of normality
That guides our lives; with blind fidelity
To our unspoken pact; not to betray
The barren wasteful conflict of each day
To neighbours, family; never dare.
Beneath us now our parents shout and swear

I wrote this poem as a sort of spoof based on Rupert Brooke's poem Dawn.

I am sorry that others share these miserable memories. I hated it so - but for us it was the norm, and it was some years before I realise that others do not live like this. It is all engraved on my memory - especially the unspoken agreement to keep up a pretence that all was well.

Water under the bridge of course - but still painful - a childhood of stress cannot be magicked away.

That's very good Lucky

shinamae
I used to get out of bed and sit on the top of stairs when I heard my dad come home from work... ready to dash downstairs and get between them when they started... crying for them to stop , I was a middle child and it never affected my siblings in the same way!...

* I also don't think his elder daughter should be 'raking' it over now eithr*
.... Hannah the other daughter hasn't been in the press.

Dennis narrated a documentaty that I watched yesterday about Churchill's bodyguard Walter Thompson......during ww2...

My mum had heart problems all her life, so my dad took all his many frustrations with life out on me.

Luckygirl3 That's a very good, extremely moving poem. It must have been hard to write and from a sad heart.
Kate1949 I'm so sorry. ?

I was scared when my mum and dad argued loudly , not that it happened a lot . I stop hate people shouting and try to avoid arguments like the plague .
My husband and I argued at times but we must have hid it well because my DD now 49 says she cannot recall us ever rowing in front of her and her siblings.

It's all relative isn't it? Hearing your parents rowing is awful but I wish that was all we had to deal with. The beatings and the fear were hard to deal with. However, I can understand how children who heard parents rowing can be affected by it too.

Kate1949 - I am sorry to hear all you went through.

I think what I found most distressing was when we children found ourselves caught up in the psychological games: "go and tell your father his tea is ready"; "if your mother wants to tell me tea is ready she can do it herself" - what do you then go back and say to your mum - instantly their problem becomes yours.

They once tried doing this to one of my DDs when she was small: I made no contact with them for a while as I was incandescent with rage - it brought back so many memories and hit the rawest of nerves. You never really forget.

Thank you Lucky. It's difficult isn't it? I can never forgive my father. We are all damaged, under confident and nervous. One of us didn't survive it.
Somehow we have managed to make good lives for ourselves and brought up decent, hardworking children.

Oh yes, there would be screaming rows before being dragged out of our beds down to the Salvation Army by my mother. Sadly, all her relationships when we were young were punctuated by violence and loud rows but she was the instigator. Her temper was legendary and nobody was safe from it. I still have moments when I am scared of her exploding although she didn't ever hit me again after I warned her I would ask for her to be charged. Her behaviour with other men would cause the most terrible rows and she would physically attack first. I have watched grown men cower at her hands.

Terrible rows between my parents and threats of violence. I can see now the ‘problem’ was my brother born during the war and spending his first few years with doting women. All changed when Dad came home and wanted to ‘discipline’ him and mum didn’t like it. Dad would scare mum but I was never scared, only grew up afraid I had inherited his temper. Brother abused me mentally physically and twice sexually maybe because Dad had no problems with me. I never dared tell about the sexual abuse which happened when I was 8. Mum would have been broken hearted and Dad would have ‘killed’ him.

Avalon. That's dreadful.

Kate1949 I lived in silence for years. This is the first I’ve been able to write about it.

Awful Avalon. Thank goodness for Gransnet. It's a form of counselling. Not wishing to overshadow your post, but I believe my 'father' was abusing or at least attempted to abuse, my older sister. When I was 15 and started to blossom, he offered me money to 'go upstairs' with him.