IF you didn't see it you missed a treat on ITV on Sunday evening.

It clashed with the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year Awards, so I dare say its audience was down.

But "Housewife, 49" was one of the best dramas I've watched on television for a long time.

There was a real connection with our area, for it was set in wartime Barrow-in-Furness, accurately described then as "Lancashire".

Although Barrow is now part of Cumbria, the old county boundaries which then applied followed more natural geographical, ethnic and linguistic ties than do the current ones.

The housewife, aged 49 was a real person, Nella.

She had responded to an invitation from the government as the Second World War began to keep a diary and to send it into a body called "Mass Observation" who were trying to chart the public mood through the traumas of the war.

Nella's diary told the truth about the war more accurately than many of the rather synthetic war movies, or the highly censored wartime news reels.

Barrow-in-Furness was hundreds of miles from the front, but it was still a dangerous place.

With its big shipbuilding yards (especially for submarines) it was an obvious target for bombing raids.

Yes, some people performed acts of great courage: there were many heroes.

But people were also scared out of their wits. And the war was violent not only in the obvious sense, but it also did great violence to people's relationships.

When the war began Nella was wholly under the thumb of her over-protective, over-bearing husband.

Not least through her work (opposed by the husband) for the Women's Voluntary Service, her relationship with her husband changed completely during the course of the war.

Half way through the play I wondered whether they would stay together.

As it happens, they did. But for hundreds of thousands the war saw their personal lives turned upside down, even where both partners survived.

The divorce rate rose four times in as many years, whilst the average age of marriage fell.

My parents were in their early twenties in the war and were forming their relationship at that turbulent time.

Like so many others marriage was followed by separation and divorce.

My mother then brought up her five children (aged from 13 to three months) - singled handed in a council maisonette.

Don't get the violin out - certainly not for me - as I've been incredibly grateful for how my life has worked out - not least thanks to my mother.

I don't recommend bringing up children other than in a stable two-parent relationship.

It is what is naturally ordained and obvious.

If the evidence is that couples who are married are more likely to get through the inevitable difficulties which can face any couple (not least from the shock of bringing children in to the world) then we should examine this carefully; and if necessary adjust our policy.

But there are also a lot of single parents who I see, who like my mother struggle through the adversity, and bring those children up at least as well as couples, and sometimes better.

They are worth a thought in all this.

I came from a broken home. The worst that ever happened to me was that I became Home Secretary!