EastEnders created the Beale and Fowler family, drawing on his own background. His mother, Ethel Holland, was one of four sisters raised in Walthamstow. Her eldest sister, Lou, had married a man named Albert Beale and had two children, named Peter and Pauline. These family members were the basis for Lou Beale, Pete Beale and Pauline Fowler. Holland also created Pauline's unemployed husband Arthur Fowler, their children Mark Fowler and Michelle Fowler, Pete's wife Kathy Beale and their son Ian Beale. Smith used her personal memories of East End residents she met when researching Victorian squares. Ethel Skinner was based on
EastEnders episodes in Ireland BBC was forced to issue an apology for causing offence. In 1997, "EastEnders" aired a storyline in which the character Pauline Fowler (Wendy Richard) discovers that she has a long-lost sister, Maggie Flaherty (Olivia Shanley). In the storyline, Pauline's now-deceased mother Lou Beale had given Maggie up for adoption shortly after her birth, as she was born out of wedlock. Maggie is first said to be the result of an illicit affair Lou had with an Irishman 60 years earlier, but although Maggie is initially thought to be Pauline's half-sister, it later transpires that they share the same father too;