Anguish of Martine's mum

Jenny Tomlin says becoming a mum to actress Martine McCutcheon made her take responsibility

12 April 2012

Jenny Tomlin, the 48-year-old mother of Martine McCutcheon, is a real East End girl. She's all dropped consonants - "You 'avin' a larf, are ye?" - just like her daughter. She smokes like a chimney and seems a round, jolly kind of a lady, as blonde as her daughter is dark.

"Do you think I look like Martine?" she asks me. I tell her I think she does. "What an honour, to look like my lovely girl," she says. She then looks at her entourage, for Jenny Tomlin now has an entourage which includes a manager, a publicist and a hair and make-up girl, and winks.

Until now, Tomlin has been known for nothing more than spawning the all-singing, dancing, acting former EastEnder Martine McCutcheon. Over the years, since her daughter became famous, she could be found quite often gracing the pages of the tabloids, normally photographed in a supporting role just behind her daughter. "Well, my husband, Alan, and I go to lots of places with Martine," says Tomlin.

"We've been to Barbados a couple of times. She's very generous."

But now perhaps all this will change, because Jenny Tomlin has written a book. It's called Behind Closed Doors and is all about her bleak childhood.

Tomlin's book is set in Hoxton in the East End of London, where she grew up in horrific conditions. It charts the course of her life, from toddler to older child, during which she was physically and sexually abused from the age of four by her father, Ronald Ponting.

The book starts with her mother, Lilian, being beaten, and goes into depth about Tomlin's own beatings at the hands of her father, and then moves onto his sexual abuse of both her and of her sister Kim.

She also describes how her two brothers, Laurence and Chris (who died, aged 17, from sniffing glue), escaped the sexual abuse but not the beatings.

In between all that is the poverty. Their dad never worked and they lived on benefits: no soap, no hot water, no heating, no toys, little food, no blankets, no money, Christmas presents that were bought for show then hocked the next day.

It's a litany of endless humiliation, from being called the Smelly Pontings to taking a sliver of soap, all Tomlin could find, to school to make a soap sculpture and have the whole class laugh at her.

It's a relentless read. She describes in depth how the abuse started.

Her father would insist she got into bed with him, both of them stark naked; he would then make her perform oral sex on him. When she was eight, it got even worse. He took her to his friend's house with the intention of shooting a pornographic film. Fortunately, they were raided by police (a neighbour had tipped them off). No charges were brought.

She also describes how her father would pick which child to abuse as if they were candies in a shop. "He'd come in and look at us and I'd think, 'Oh please don't let it be me', but if it wasn't me it'd be Kim and I'd hate that too." Tomlin says she feels a lot of guilt about not being able to protect her sister.

"I now know he was a bully and a coward. When I was 11 and started at secondary school I made a decision that I wouldn't let him abuse me and I told him that and he stopped. It was that easy. But why didn't I get him to leave my sister alone as well? It's hard to answer. We were in this vortex. I saw no way out."

But what's even more surprising is that no one else saw any way out. Why didn't anyone do anything about it, specifically her mother? "I've asked myself this many times," says Tomlin, lighting up a cigarette. "Part of me thinks she had learning difficulties.

She didn't seem to know how to do anything: cook, clean, drive. She was totally under my dad's thumb because he'd beaten her so much. Everyone in the street around our block of flats, Monteagle Court, knew he was a bully. Some tried to stop him but it didn't work, so it just carried on."

What about social workers? There's a bit in the book when an NSPC officer comes round after Laurence is admitted to hospital following a particularly bad beating; why didn't he do something? "Children were seen and not heard in those days," says Tomlin. "The social would come and talk to my dad and he'd tell them a pack of lies and then they'd go. I tried to talk to the NSPCC man but he brushed me off."

Did Martine know that her mother was abused? "Well, she does now," says Tomlin with her idiosyncratic throaty laugh. "It's hard, isn't it, because when I had Martine it meant the whole world to me. In many ways I hadn't really faced up to things. I'd left home at 16 and suddenly the world was open to me and I thought, 'Great', because I was so happy to be leaving my father. But I don't think I'd really let myself think about what he did to me until I had Martine. I hadn't told anyone.

"Then, when I became a mum at 19, I took responsibility. I vowed that no one would hurt Martine or put her down or do anything to her ever. And I loved her so and still do. She's so talented and she keeps on having to bounce back, but there she is, always being my loving daughter."

Martine's father, Thomas Hemmings, unfortunately turned out to be not unlike her grandfather. "Yes," sighs Tomlin. "He was immensely charismatic when I met him, so goodlooking. He swept me off my feet. I mean, I look at him now and think, 'What on earth was I doing?', but he seemed something special then."

Hemmings turned out to be a violent drunk, and soon after Martine was born, Tomlin had to obtain a court order to prevent him from coming near them. "He was obsessed with me," she says. "He wasn't interested in Martine. It was almost like my mother being so obsessed with my father and not us. Luckily, I got myself away from him as soon as possible. I had a hell of a time, though. Me and Martine had to move all the time."

She then went on to marry John McCutcheon and have a son, LJ, now 14. "John is a wonderful man. We had 13 years together and we had a good marriage and we get on well now, but our relationship ran its course." She is now married to Alan, whom she describes as her "soul mate".

Both John and Alan, she says, back her decision to have the book published. But what does she think her family's reaction to it will be? "Well, Kim and me are still really close," she says. "She's fine with it."

What about her eldest brother, Laurence? In the book he is portrayed as the one who got away. "Yes, he did manage to leave home quite young because he went to naval college," she says.

"I idolised him and he tried his best to help us. He'd take beatings for us, but he was very poorly because he'd been left outside in the rain as a baby when Dad wouldn't let him come into the house. Dad didn't really like boys. But, after all that, Laurence and me aren't in touch any more. I think after Chris died, Laurence just wanted to wash his hands. He walked away. He's a successful businessman now, married with kids. That's all I know."

Her mother is still alive. "She lives ... somewhere," says Tomlin. "But I've lost touch with her too. She was the only one who went to Dad's funeral. I used to try to see Mum, but she'd just go on and on about what a great man he was and how happy they were, so I just can't be bothered."

So her mother never accepted the fact that her daughters were abused? "Abuse is a touchy subject," she says. "The manuscript was turned down by people who told me it was too horrible, but abuse is horrible. What am I supposed to do about that? It happened and it was horrific and awful and now I've written about it and I want to talk about it because I want to help. If this book helps an abused child not to feel alone, to do something about it, to survive, then I'll be happy.

"All this publicity doesn't come naturally to me. It does to Martine. She's an
old hand at it and she's always loved that kind of attention, but I'm not like her at all. I find this all pretty difficult."

Is Tomlin, I ask, prepared for the flak she might get over this? After all, with her mother and siblings still alive, plus who alone knows from her father's side of the family, they might well take against her, even deny that what she says is true?

"I've thought about that," she says, "of course I have. It will upset me if my family turn against me, I can't say that it won't, but what my dad did to me was so awful, so hurtful, that I don't think anyone could hurt me that way again. I'm tough, you see. I've had to be."

Is Martine prepared for the onslaught of publicity? "Yes, she is," says Tomlin simply. "She's tough as well." "My life's so different now, " Tomlin says. "I'm happy. It's all worked out." Well, it has and it hasn't. At the end of the book, Kim finally snaps and reports her father to the social services. The case goes to court and - it's a long story - her father is acquitted of all charges. Her mother refuses to divorce him. In many ways it's failure. Did Tomlin at least have the chance to have it out with her father?

"Of course I hated him," she says. "But no, I never said anything. Maybe I was still emotionally beaten by him. The chance never really arose."

Perhaps this is why she has written the book, to exorcise those demons. "It was a cathartic experience," she says, "but now I'm getting on with my life." She and Alan have moved to France. "We live in the Dordogne. I'm learning French! Can you imagine it? Me, that poor, dirty girl from Monteagle Court living a nice life en France!

"I am very proud of what I've achieved," she says. "But what I'm most proud of is the fact that this book is getting published. When I sent out the manuscript I made sure people didn't know who I was, so I know it's not just because I'm Martine McCutcheon's mum. It's because I've got something to say."

Behind Closed Doors is published in May by Hodder and Stoughton, £12.99.

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