Radio 4
Home Truths
Listen Again
About John Peel
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Dad's Other Life Sue found out that her parents weren't married at the age of 25. Years later, as she was looking into her family tree she was sent an email' bombshell'. Her estranged father had died in April that year. And he had been married and with five children... Sue didn’t know that her parents weren’t married until her mother died in 1976. After the funeral Sue’s father told her he was going to live with his sister who was ill, and that the family home would have to be sold. He said he would be in touch but he disappeared.
The solicitor sent Sue ‘power of attorney’ documents which Sue signed, though she was puzzled. Finally her aunt told her that her parents had never been married. Sue had guessed as much by then. She had gone through her mother’s things she had found various papers that had hinted that this was the case. Sue remembers asking her mother once about the date of their wedding anniversary and her mother changing the subject. She didn’t really think about it at the time.
Her aunt told Sue how ashamed her mother had been of being pregnant and unmarried - Sue was born in 1950. In 1968 the divorce laws changed and Sue’s father had told her mother that he would divorce his wife but he hadn't.
That was 1976 and Sue decided not to take it any further because her aunt was so upset by the whole thing. She heard nothing from her father at all, and after a number of years got in touch with him through the Salvation Army.
Sue didn’t say anything to him about him not having married her mother. He was quite Victorian in his manner and there was no way she felt she could broach it with him. She sensed that he was ashamed and didn’t want to talk about it.
Once Sue knew about her father’s ‘real’ wife, she assumed he had been separated from her. This was partly because she always felt her home life was ‘normal’. Her father was always there at weekends, though not during the week, because of his business.
So it wasn't until Sue became interested in tracing her family history, that the full truth came out. She contacted someone who had been researching the Rye family for some time. He had lots of details but she sensed that he was keeping something back. Then one day last year there was a message for her. Her father had died in April that year and he had been married and had five (other) children.
It seems that their father had been married in the 1920s. His garage had somehow enabled him to lead a double life. Sue discovered, for example that her father had always taken her to the greyhound racing on a Wednesday (the weekday night he was always with Sue and Sue’s mother) and taken her half-brother with him on a Thursday! Sue thinks that her mother knew but couldn’t do anything about the situation, and her half siblings think that their mother knew too.
Sue has a half brother and two half sisters still alive. Her niece Justine, eventually she persuaded the the rest of the family - some of whom are very bitter about the whole story - to meet Sue, and she went to see them last month.
Sue doesn’t feel bitter or angry, but she does wish that she could talk to her parents about it all.
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