Noel Radford

[Anarchy99]

AIBU to point out that Noel Radford got together with his now wife very young and they had their first baby when she was THIRTEEN and he was SEVENTEEN.

Four years difference but a lifetime in maturity. A man old enough to drive a car and a child.

As others are in the firing line for age differences despite no implication of any wrongdoing, is everyone okay with this?

If so, why? Is it because they were in care?

Not my problem, if you have a problem with it. If I don't know the person I have a right to say.

I don’t think it’s personal - but it may be seen as okay to be rude when you don’t think there is an issue with a child and a grown man having a relationship.

Getting really sick of these threads honestly

Oh,you're not allowed to say you don't know people, it makes you sound superior apparently!

These threads are getting right on my nerves too. I wish Mumsnet would do something about them.

And on that note I'm out!

.

It doesn’t make you sound superior, don’t worry about that.

@HappyLizard23 you really don’t have to announce that.

But indeed, never mind coercive manipulation by older men to younger girls. More importantly, one poster doesn’t know who he is 🙄

I have no idea who he is either

That doesn’t surprise me.

Why? Because I’ve never heard of one person out of the 8 billion in the world?

Not another thread.

Posters need to be really careful with what they say on threads such as these. No unfounded, evidence based claims. In libel cases, for instance, Mumsnet can be made to release your details by the courts.

see Privacy Policy
https://www.mumsnet.com/i/privacy-policy
…. if we are contacted by the police about a possible breach of the law, we may share your personal information with public authorities without your permission. If we are compelled to do so by a court order, we will share your personal data to the extent specified in the order.

I’ve never understood why so many tv companies, magazines, brands etc have wanted to work with the Radfords. They met when she was 7 because he was her brother’s best friend. It wasn’t some young love story, it was rape. I don’t give a flying fuck if they stayed together and had hundreds of kids, it’s still wrong. And another thing I’ll never understand is the people who make excuses for it.

The age difference is correct but I think Sue might have been younger than 13. 13 was when she got pregnant with their first child. Neither of them were in care, both were adopted as young babies so grew up in “normal” conventional families rather than children’s homes or foster care.

I don’t know why they are seen as a wholesome family. Whole thing gives me the creeps.

I can’t stress enough how different it was then, back when they were teens. I’m not saying it was right - far from it - but there was far less public condemnation of that kind of age gap. A sexually active teen girl wasn’t considered to be automatically a victim, nor was she generally considered a child even in early teens. Morally it was still wrong as well as legally but it wasn’t considered as evil as it is now. Many of my friends, myself included went out with boys and young men a good few years older than ourselves before we were 16. We - some of us - went to the pub and drank at a much younger age too - the licensing laws were in place but very poorly monitored. At 14 we were in the pub on a regular basis.

The further back you go in time, the more you
would have seen very young women leaving school at 13,14 and getting married before they were 18, often to older men who could provide for them and their children. The culture of being a child until you’re 18 is a really, really recent thing.

Don’t jump on me for saying this - it doesn’t mean I agree with it now, as an adult. Just that we need to put some context around these things. The fact that he appears to have been a faithful husband for many years and to have supported his family seems more the point at this stage.

@Celer i don’t disagree with that take. I do find judging the past with modern morals largely a pointless exercise.

But I do find that the press will stick to a narrative and in this case it’s wholesome young love. I don’t think that’s really the case, more likely two very damaged people found one another and have unfortunately gone on to produce yet more damaged people.

Nobody needs to have kids, or pay for schooling for kids now, to "pay back for their own schooling". How illogical.

Child free people "paid back for our own schooling" by working and paying taxes all our lives. I have already worked for far longer, and contributed more in tax, than anyone in their 20s ,30s & 40s having kids now.

We paid for ,so far, schooling for 3 or 4 generations . Your grandparents, depending on age, your parents , and yours. We do not owe your kids for our own schooling ! . What a grossly entitled,ungrateful , natalist attitude.

And covering 30 years of individual maternity leave , unpaid, as well as our own job, in my case.

And we definitely should not be liable to pay for an obscenely environmentally damaging, unethically overpopulating ,huge group of unfortunate children of reality TV "stars ".

The least environmentally damaging people paying for the most environmentally damaging peoples' lifestyle choices , 22 times over, so far, not including the next generation reproducing even more , is fact.

He was a grown man - she was a child. I am about the same age as him as it was never acceptable.

NRTFT but I’ve read their book. They knew each other as children so it’s not as predatorial as it sounds.

I did not say it was acceptable. Just that it was not seen through the quite the same eyes as we look at it now.

Why so rude? It’s such an emotional topic but I don’t believe I deserve the ODFOD abuse for making an observation and expressing an opinion about context based on experience.

It really was. Granted, it was common for 16yo girls to date men in their 20s but 13 was still a child. It was then, as it is now. Any men that went for a child was called a nonce

As have others who have told you that you are categorically wrong.

I knew that people would excuse his behaviour but why him versus the other cases being discussed today?

A man raped a child. He got her pregnant yet people like you keep making excuses for it by saying “it was different back then” as if it was the 1890s when it the 1980s, almost the 1990s. It makes me sick.

Add to that the poster who seemed to think that as it was only a four year gap it was fine…

Bloody depressing