- Lou Beale
] Harry and Dora were not mentioned in the book and neither Maureen or Dora have been mentioned or seen on-screen, either in the serial itself or "EastEnders: Civvy Street".
As is customary for an ongoing television serial, details and facts are forgotten and recreated as it progresses, which may possibly be the reason for the conflicting information regarding Lou's children.
torylines
Lou was a true East End girl and lived in
Walford all her life. Albert and Lou came to their house on the corner ofAlbert Square , number forty-five, on getting married during the 1930s. Lou remained in the house throughout theSecond World War and brought up her children there. Her affinity and ties with the area meant that she tended to view Albert Square as her own and that gave her an excuse to intrude into anyone's business as she saw fit.On screen, Lou was mother to Kenny and twins Pete and Pauline. After the untimely death of her beloved husband in 1970, Lou remained in the house on Albert Square with her daughter's family; son-in-law Arthur and grandchildren, Michelle and Mark. Kenny emigrated to
New Zealand in the 1960s and it was left to Pauline and Pete to tend to their mum's welfare in her old-age.Lou was great friends with
Dot Cotton andEthel Skinner , her life-long neighbours. She also had a good relationship with the localgeneral practitioner , Dr Legg and the oldJewish pawnbroker known only as 'Uncle'.She had a tempestuous relationship with son-in-law Arthur; nothing he did was ever good enough for her daughter Pauline. In February 1985, she was furious to discover that Pauline had fallen pregnant for the third time, her family already financially crippled by Arthur's long stint of unemployment. Lou wasn't adverse to speaking her mind or scolding her family if she disapproved of their actions, but she soon came to celebrate her grandson Martin's birth - although she would have preferred him to be named Albert after her late husband. She was a strict traditionalist and moralist but she believed in strong family-values most of all, and would defend her family to the hilt if any outsider dared to criticise. She provided a warm shoulder to cry on when Michelle found out she was pregnant in late 1985 and was supportive of her favourite grandchild, Ian, on his plans to work within the catering-trade rather than following in his father's footsteps in a more masculine occupation.Lou had a long standing feud with son Pete's ex-wife Pat, having never forgiven her for having an affair with his older brother Kenny. And Lou was plagued with mixed-feelings when Kenny returned to
London in 1988, after banishing him from their lives twenty years previously. She had always had a difficult relationship with her son, feeling him to be "too big for the Square" and feared that Pat's revelation, that he was the true father of Pete's son Simon, would tear her beloved family apart. But before his return to New Zealand, Lou managed to make amends with her estranged son, despite Pat's malicious stirring - who later admitted to Simon that Brian Wicks was his real father after all.In her later years, Lou was plagued with ill-health. In July 1988, she returned from a holiday in her beloved
Leigh-on-Sea feeling distinctly out of sorts. Sensing her own demise, she took the opportunity to announce to her nearest-and-dearest exactly what she thought of them; even managing to make a truce of sorts with arch-nemesis Pat. After gathering her clan of Beales and Fowlers around her, she had a few choice words of wisdom and encouragement for each family-member. The next morning, she was discovered dead in her bed by daughter Pauline, having died peacefully in her sleep the previous night. Her friends and family mourned her passing affectionately, never quite managing to forget the irreplaceable "old bag".The youngest of seven siblings, Lou was from a large East End family herself. Only her sister Flo came to outlive her. In 1990,
Harry Osborne returned to Albert Square – he had been engaged to Lou's sister Doris but she had married Morris Miller after he was presumed dead in the war. In 1993, Lou's relative Nellie came to stay with Pauline and Arthur. In 1997, it was discovered that Lou had given birth to another daughter, also fathered by Albert, who Lou had given up for adoption after she was conceived out of wedlock. Pauline, Ian and Mark travelled to Ireland later that year to reunite with their long-lost family member,Maggie Flaherty .References
ee also
*
The Beale/Fowler family External links
*EEcharlink|lou_b
* [http://wgazette.com/int-wing.html Interview with Anna Wing] from The Walford Gazette
* [http://talkwalford.co.uk/ipb/lofiversion/index.php/t1734.html Interview with Anna Wing] on TalkWalford
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