Tommy Nolan was instrumental to the success of his daughters’ singing group but behind closed doors, he was a ‘monster’ who caused lifelong harm to his children
The late Linda Nolan was part of the UK’s first ‘millionaire girl band’, which rode high with hits like I’m in the Mood for Dancing.
The singer, who died on Wednesday at the age of 65 following a long journey with secondary breast cancer, and her sisters achieved global fame in The Nolans. But behind the girl group’s rise to the top lay painful secrets, none more so than the horror that came at the hands of their father Tommy Nolan.
For Tommy had sexually abused his older daughter Anne, a fact she only revealed in 2008, ten years after he died. Growing up, the sisters’ father had regularly beaten up their mother, his wife Maureen, as well as turning his hand to his children. He had also been instrumental in their rise to fame.
Conflicted Linda said her father could be “fabulous” when he wasn’t drinking (
Image:
SSPL via Getty Images)
Maureen and Tommy, who first met at a gig in Dublin’s Clery’s Ballroom, were originally a duo before they moved to Blackpool and became keen to turn their young family into a musical troupe. As Bernie Nolan, who died from breast cancer in 2013, joked: “By the time Coleen and I came along, the question Mum and Dad would ask was not ‘Will it be a boy or a girl?’ but whether the baby could sing.”
Spotted performing in a hotel in the North West seaside town by a London exec, The Nolans never looked back. Chart hits included Gotta Pull Myself Together, Don’t Make Waves and Attention To Me, with their own BBC TV specials too.
But in her autobiography Anne’s Song, the oldest sibling opened up about her father’s sickening abuse. “At 11-years-old I trusted him,” she wrote. “Maybe this was something dads did with their daughters. My overwhelming reaction was one of puzzlement. I remember thinking to myself: ‘Why is Dad doing this?’.”
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“My father may have invaded my body, but he also invaded my mind,” said Anne. “I’m now in my late 50s, and yet, to this day, no recollection of my childhood can ever be carefree. It has a contaminating effect that seeps into every corner of your mind, every facet of your life. It doesn’t go away, and the slate can never be wiped clean.”
Coleen said Tommy had “shortest fuse in the world” if alcohol had been consumed (
Image:
Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
Coleen, meanwhile, told of being beaten from a young age, saying her father could be a “monster” at times. “If he’d been sinking the pints he had the shortest fuse in the world and could become aggressive or violent in the blink of an eye,” the Loose Women star said on the show in 2009.
In her own memoir, Coleen recalled a brutal attack on her big sister Anne. “He was brutal, hitting her repeatedly in the face, spitting: ‘You will cry’,” she said. “But she jus sat there saying: ‘I won’t’, while he continued to hit her in the mouth.’
“He was a bully and a drunk,” added the star, the youngest of eight siblings. “I knew he’d made mum’s life hell and sexually abused Anne. His behaviour repulsed me… But I also loved him.”
For Linda, finding out about Tommy’s treatment of Anne left her similarly conflicted. “Part of me cried, I’m ashamed to say, because he didn’t do it to me and I didn’t think he loved me enough,” she said. “He was a Jekyll and Hyde, but when he wasn’t drinking he was fabulous and he stopped drinking for many years before he died.”
Tommy died of liver cancer in 1998, aged 78.
