Mrs Wilson

[unique1986]

Mrs Wilson starts 9pm on Tuesday 27th November on BBC One.

@ViragoKnows I rarely post here as it happens. However, when something is a dramatisation of real life, and it has been discussed in the media anyway, I don't see this as a 'spoiler'. The series is about far, far more than how many wives. it's not meant to be a thriller like Little Drummer Girl, or Body Guard where the number of wives is integral to the 'plot' . There IS no plot!!! It's not as if knowing there is another wife is going to detract from the overall enjoyment of it.

I just despair at people who can't see the bigger picture and want to focus on a minor detail and want to have a bash at someone for mentioning something.

And yes, there is another poster or two who has said the same thing. So maybe attack them too?

I'm off. Life's too short to argue over something so trivial.

You know some people didn’t want The Crown spoilt for them either. Just because its factual, doesn’t mean people want to read up ahead of time.

Just watched episode 2.
I'm finding her quite unpleasant, in her denial and her treatment of her sons.

She's forged 2 documents herself already, the divorce paper and the letter from the ministry re mansion ownership, so hardly honourable.

@WindinTheWillowsLover you could have just apologised for introducing future plot points instead of sneering at other posters who are enjoying this for what it is - a piece of drama.
It's not a documentary.
(FWIW I too read up several articles about Alison and Alec Wilson before the series began, but I had the good manners not to quote them)

Oh for heaven's sake! Just apologise. I did something similar myself the other day. I could still be arguing about it, but I was wrong. It did reveal things other people didnt want to know. Could have kicked myself. Poor behaviour. Leave it alone.

I think her behaviour shows that there are many more shades of grey than just black and white over what is 'wrong'. Each of them were doing what they felt they had to in the circumstances they were in. She is just as duplicitous as him but for different reasons.

Regarding her behaviour, this deception was revealed to her in 1962 after 20 years of marriage. This was a time when husbands weren't questioned, or asked to explain themselves to their wife/family as they would be today. Parents also. Fairly rare to question them or bluntly state you didn't believe them. Very different times. To find, as a Catholic, you had been living 'in sin', regardless of fault, would have been a source of awful shame which she would have wished to conceal from everyone, especially her children, now suddenly bastards in the eyes of the Church and the Law and no entitlement to any inheritance. Plus possible criminal charges she might face for her part in the crime of bigamy. So denial and despair, definitely. What else did he leave her? I'd be feeling brittle.

@longwayoff you raise a good point. I was looking at this from Allison's view alone, that her husband had another woman (or 2 other wives!) but hadn't thought about the religious viewpoint. Alec was Catholic (she wasn't,, at least when they met) and their sons were too.
Being illegitimate was a great stigma in the 60s, nowadays your parents not being married is no big deal.

It's astonishing how much societal norms have changed in 50 years or so, and how fast the pace of change has been. I'm enjoying this programme immensely, its well written, well cast and well acted. Lovely.

I'm finding this series really interesting! Looking forward to episode 3!

Oh that was excellent television. Well done Ruth Wilson, it must have been a harrowing role.

That was excellent!
I liked the fact that we still don't know what was fact and what was Alex's fiction.
The period detail of clothing was excellent - I've seen photos of my older cousin at same age as Baby Nigel, wearing an identical knitted bonnet like the blue one he was wearing on the train.

Did Mrs W the II (Ruth Wilson) really end up a nun?

Poor woman. Good news the family all meet up and found strength in unity against Mystery Grandad the Fantasist.

Period detail very good. I particularly like the street of semi detached houses, I remember living in similar, tidy gardens and hedges, all looking pristine Cant imagine where they found it. Once, every street I saw in suburbia looked like that.

In the postscript it said she did become a nun. To be honest, I don't blame her after what she went through to want to hide away and never go near another man again! I thought that was really good. Is Nigel Ruth Wilson's dad? It's good that the family all got together.

I found the final programme intensely annoying and very dragged out. Whatever else her husband was he was undeniably a lying bastard. And then she escaped into the bosom of the Catholic Church, cut herself off from life and became a bride of Christ. Well and truly stitched up by the patriarchy. That priest got on my pip too - he probably knew more than she did if her husband went to confession. I felt sorry for her sons and found the happy family bit at the end rather jarring. I was quite angry at it all! Appreciate I might be on my own on this. Loved the period detail though - best thing about it in my opinion.

But it was a true story! She did join a convent and the family did get together. I am Catholic and I know members of my family who used joining the priesthood as a kind of respectable 'protection' from the living life. I think the end is more an 'up yours' to Alec Wilson. He tried to keep them all secret but they are all happy without him and with each other.

I guess I feel terribly sorry for her and angry at her ‘martyrdom’ - but you’re right that their all meeting up was a positive but am I right in thinking that didn’t happen until 2007 when she died? I’ll have to read the background - I knew it was a true story and that the lead actor was the grandaughter but I deliberately didn’t read anymore about it until I’d watched.

I think so. She died in 2006 and they met in 2007. I think there's a book that I might look up. It must have been hard for Ruth Wilson to be neutral about her grandmother and father, but I think she did a good job.

The video at the end was wonderful! I did cry a little bit

I think becoming a nun gave Alison Wilson a lot of peace. It wasn't necessarily that she was running away from reality, but that she found real comfort in her religion and a genuine vocation to join a convent. I think that was a far preferable way to live the rest of her life, that in bitterness and hatred, or bewilderment and hurt.

By the way, the real Alison Wilson didn't know about wives 3 and 4. She only knew about Gladys.

The main thing that bugged me was the funeral in Southsea showing a church on a hill -Southsea is flat as a pancake!

I watched the final one this morning.

There's an interesting article on the bbc site today about the real story.

(spoiler warning if you click!)

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46456654

Thanks pancake, that's fascinating.