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PRIVE, 1986

(Translated from the original Dutch)

Miss Brahms from Are You Being Served?

Wendy Richard:  "My Husband Beat Me Black and Blue!"

Actress Wendy Richard, known to us as 'Miss Brahms' from the series Are You Being Served? tells four years after her separation why her marriage was such a big mistake.  How jealous her man was of her success as an actress and how he beat her black and blue almost daily.

"Afterwards I thought I was crazy to have remained in that way so long with him," says the blonde Wendy, as she talked about her marriage with publicity man Will Thorpe.

 "I can't remember how often he hit me.  But it just went on."  Wendy married Thorpe after living with him for seven years, but the marriage lasted just 18 months.

"He was terribly jealous of me," Wendy explains about the aggressive behavior of Thorpe.  "He also said to me that I had no talent.  Why did I remain with him thus, nevertheless?  Like all women who are beaten by their men, I thought he would change.  But he didn't change."

"I often came onto the set of Are You Being Served? with a bruised and beaten face," she remembers.  "I went straight to the make-up department where they knew how to cover up the contusions very well.  Molly Sugden, who played Mrs. Slocombe, once saw me without make-up and shrieked from fright.  I think that everyone knew then what was going on, but no one dared do anything about it."

Wendy has not been successful in love.  Her first marriage also ran aground very quickly and her second fell to pieces relatively quickly after a few months.  "I shall always stay single," she says as she tries to laugh.  "But fortunately I still have my work . . ."

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