22 Feb 1978

As for Tatum, She was more concerned with her reputation. "I know what they say about me," Tatum blurted out. "How I'm precocious or a brat or real nasty.

But I'm not really. Well, at least not all the time. I admit I can be mean and I do lose my temper with my brothers (there are two) when things at home don't go right.

But it is a happy family and we mostly do every- thing together, even the cooking. As for being spoiled - I can't be more spoilder than I am now."

Ryan picked up on "spoilder." lt's hectic bringing up a child on your own. One father families are rarer than one mother families. The presence of a woman's hand is missed at home because the children do need a balance.

"lt wasn't from choice that I separated from the children's mothers, lt was circumstances."

He added: "I don't find it easy to fall in love. Deep love is not an easy act for me. So much else goes with it - selflessness, for instance. That I haven't got. But I am a loving father, not perhaps so much a loving husband."

What about those stories that she behaves like a jealous wife to her father and even vets his girlfriends?

"We do joke about his girls, but I don't tell him who he can or can't go out with," she said. "He wouldn't let me."

But to Tatum the idea of her father marrying again for any reason is not particularly appealing.

"I'd just hate the idea," she said in her low, smoky voice. "I don't want him to get married again - ever. We have a nice thing going at home so why bring someone else in. Besides, I've gotten over .the need for a mother. I don't think there is anyone in the world who would take us anyway."

And if Ryan did bring a woman into the house, what then?

"Well, we'd be completely open about it," he said. "Tatum is so completely involved in my life, I couldn't attempt to slip anything by. There could be nothing furtive in any affair I had."