Reading Julian Webb’s revelations about his father made me think of another (tangential) link between the BBC & this story.
At the beginning of 1962 (the year after Justin was born) the BBC began a new soap opera, Compact, set in the offices of a women’s magazine.
At one point in this soap opera the secretary of the magazines female editor became pregnant, following a brief affair with a married man. As I remember it the story was a bit of a crusade for her & others in her plight, as represented by what was then still called the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child & is now Gingerbread. There was no question of marriage to the father.
Justin Webb’s statement that he does not believe that his mother was abandoned has caused some surprise to younger listeners, but the plain fact is that in those days it was pretty much taken for granted that the mistress had no right to expect anything from the father since his loyalties must lie with the woman to whom he had made his vows & their children.
What does seem very odd now is that many people thought that the age of the unmarried mother would soon come to an end with the ready availability of reliable contraception.
