Anyone watching / watched “A very British scandal”?

eazybee she was a product of her upbringing that was dysfunctional. Brought up in a mileu where a young girl was only of value as breeding stock or for her fortune and she clearly attracted high-powered male attention from a very young age.

What she became as an adult was as much formed by that priveleged and mercenary background as a girl from an impoverished home with a single parent of the kind that has a stream of men passing through the home so often follows in her mothers footsteps or becomes a drug addict. Both have been emotionally abused and have no pattern of a loving and supportive relationship to look back on as an exanple.

Sorry. A friend of mine had an abortion at a similar age, she was alone because the man was older and she didnt tell him. Horrific to happen to any child.

I’ve only watched the first episode. I googled Margaret, seems like she had a number of dalliances apart from David Niven. The Aly Khan was one, oh and the Duke of Kent also, when he was married.

She sounded what my dad would have termed ‘a rum un’.

I'm halfway through it and find myself feeling sorry for Margaret. She was a victim of those misogynistic times when the woman was always to blame.

If you use Google Image there are some really beautiful photographs of her.

I do believe that it was six of one & half a dozen of the other. However I do find myself feeling quite sorry for her. She bankrolled him for most of their marriage.
We are shown her infidelities but as yet not his.
She should have listened to wives one & two.

Calendargirl

I’ve only watched the first episode. I googled Margaret, seems like she had a number of dalliances apart from David Niven. The Aly Khan was one, oh and the Duke of Kent also, when he was married.

She sounded what my dad would have termed ‘a rum un’.

True - but what MOnica says is very pertinent -

she was a product of her upbringing that was dysfunctional. Brought up in a mileu where a young girl was only of value as breeding stock or for her fortune and she clearly attracted high-powered male attention from a very young age.What she became as an adult was as much formed by that priveleged and mercenary background as a girl from an impoverished home with a single parent of the kind that has a stream of men passing through the home so often follows in her mothers footsteps or becomes a drug addict. Both have been emotionally abused and have no pattern of a loving and supportive relationship to look back on as an exanple

I enjoyed the series and binge watched it on i-Player. In my eyes everyone involved was awful and no one deserved sympathy. Lazy entitled people with no morals basically. However what a good yarn wonderfully acted and the locations were fantastic.

she was a product of her upbringing that was dysfunctional

Do we know that for a fact?
She was brought up in New York, her father was a millionaire, she was educated privately but do we know that her upbringing was dysfunctional?

This series is portraying her more sympathetically and I think that is right because she spent the rest of her life with a dreadful reputation hanging over her as a result of the divorce. The Duke of Argyll sounds as if he was a monster but the aristocracy would label an outsider as the wrongdoer.

She was promiscuous from a young age but so were many in their circles.

I've enjoyed watching this and I have a very vague memory of the scandal at the time, being an avid reader of gossip columns back in the day. It looks like they deserved each other because of their behaviour, however she was unfairly treated because of the double standards then.
Apparently she died in near poverty in old age, after being taken for a ride by the beastly Duke.
Who'd marry a man with a castle, eh?

I did wonder what happened to her after her father died as he seemed to be the one who paid for her lifestyle. Since he had married again presumably everything went to his second wife but perhaps there was a trust fund for Margaret. I did read something about her and apparently the accident we saw in some of the flashbacks was thought to be the cause of many of her problems, it was suggested she was a nymphomaniac because of the damage to her brain. I did enjoy the series but I didn’t think it was up to the standard of the one about Jeremy Thorpe.

What gets me is that even in the TV piece very little has been made of that the Duke married all of his wives for their money, but mostly that he beat Margaret so much that sometimes she couldn’t open her eyes.He was a true b*****d
I am a Campbell descendant and of all the Dukes of Argyll in history he’s the one I am most ashamed off.
But did his behaviour count in the divorce-No his affairs his behaviour to his wife -No.Drugs -No
All it was about was Margaret’s affair’s but don’t think there is any evidence that there was 88 of them no sympathy for all the miscarriages and beatings she suffered, yes she was a socialite so that was the life she was raised in and was not by any means the only one
but she does seem to have paid a much bigger price than any of the others in the same company.

I felt really sorry for her.......double standards and misogyny ar work. One rule for the boys and one for the girls, a classic case of what we now call "slut shaming".

She was just a cash cow to him, once the money ran out her days were numbered.

I watched the final two episodes last night. It was very well done. Core Foy is so watchable: a very good actress.

Wonder if the families were approached regarding the making of this series

I was wondering about that, given that her sons were only mentioned briefly in the first series.

Her daughter is still alive

Apparently after she married she had eight miscarriages before giving birth to a stillborn daughter, then she had a daughter and a son. as Anniebach says her daughter is still alive. Apparently many of Margaret’s male friends were homosexual but she couldn’t contest the claim that they were her lovers as homosexuality was illegal at the time of the trial. She saw a therapist for her stammer, the same man who treated King George VIth but he said it wasn’t treatable because it was because she was left handed but was forced to write with her right hand during childhood. So although she had a privileged upbringing with great family wealth her life was not a bed of roses.

George 6 was left handed

Her escort friend implied that it would be impossible for him to have a relationship with her: I assumed he meant that he was gay.

The Duke seems to have been an unmitigated shit! It was an excellent production about a set of people with hollow almost pointless lives.
She certainly seems to have been unfairly treated..

Can someone explain why the Duchess went to the trouble of taking that damning photograph and keeping it!

Howjado - I wondered that too. Would love to know what V meant. They said it was never disclosed

She's not coming across as a particularly admirable person but seems to have had a lot of problems in life. The Duke seems to have been a nasty piece of work. I wonder what his upbringing was like.
I thought they were hinting at some form of incest between Margaret and her father, but I probably got that wrong.

Howjado it was done with a Polaroid camera. They were a very new innovation. One of the reasons the man is said to be Duncan Sandys is that one of the only Polaroids in the country was with the Ministry of Defence and he was the minister. I assume it was the equivalent of Dickpics today. AlthoughI believe there are said to be 2 men Douglas Fairbanks being the other. She seemed to hoard souvenirs and write about her sexual contacts..

It was rather foolish to have that photo taken and keeping the diaries. The Duke was more crafty in that he left no evidence of his affairs. He must have been a thoroughly obnoxious man using women for the money they brought and then discarding them when the money ran out. The whole thing was stacked against Margaret, she was vilefied while he went on to marry yet another heiress and his castle restored at no expense to him, he was the disgusting one.