With minimal commentary, the cover story of the Observer Magazine of 12 June 1988 was a powerful and often disquieting look at the effects of divorce on children, whose unmediated voices filled the pages.
Robin, nine, lived in London with his mum and her new husband and spent the holidays with his brother, Gavin, in Devon when he went to visit their father and his new wife. The poignant absence of sibling squabbles spoke volumes about new environments and expectations. ‘Me and Gavin normally fight – Gavin normally chucks pillows at me,’ he said, ‘but I don’t do that at their house.’
Precociously articulate Lucy, eight, spoke about acquiring a stepparent. ‘Judy used to come round after my parents split up, and I used to say, “Oh, no, not her again,”’ she said. ‘I was rather scared. I was only little then, and I didn’t really understand. It happened gradually that I felt better. I felt she was taking up my space – I don’t now.’
Perhaps to avoid terms such as mum and stepmum, she used her parents’ first names instead. ‘I accept that John and Marilyn are not going to be together any more. But I suppose at the back of my mind I still wish they were.’
For Annabel, 17, things eventually turned around even after the most inauspicious of starts. ‘My dad remarried without telling me for about a year,’ she said. ‘Then I found the wedding photographs, and she was halfway pregnant. I felt awful – upset, angry, very hurt and betrayed… Now my stepmother’s one of my best friends.’
One boy, John, spoke of the comfort of having his brother at his boarding school (‘He was like a piece of the family that didn’t change’), but when he said he felt he was happily away from it all (‘as if it had never really happened’), we register the shock and also the great comfort to be had in denial among all the children.
