As a child, the actor Antonia Bernath feared for her safety every day. When she was 10, she and her mother escaped, but there was more tragedy to come. She describes how she put herself back together
‘There’s this idea of the middle-class utopia, and that child abuse can only exist alongside poverty,” says Antonia Bernath, an actor best known for her roles in Downton Abbey and St Trinian’s.
Now 38, she has spent most of her adult life trying to process – and heal from – the years of violence she endured at the hands of her father during the 90s.“It started very early,” she says. “My mum said that when I was a baby, he would use my cart as a balance for his gun while he’d shoot groundhogs.” Later, he would beat Bernath to the point where it was painful to sit down. Didn’t her teachers notice?
“No,” she says, “no one questioned.”
