One evening in 1981, the popular BBC1 programme Nationwide broadcast an interview with one of the most loved musical parterships of the time: The Carpenters, a squeaky-clean duo, comprising the velvet-voiced singer Karen and her brother Richard.They were interviewed by Sue Lawley, and fans no doubt expected to hear about new record releases and concerts that the American pair had planned. Instead, viewers saw a painfully thin, gaunt and fragile-looking Karen sitting on a sofa – her huge, brown eyes staring, hauntingly, from her drawn face.Lawley asked the question outright: was the reason Karen hadn't been recording or going on tour recently because she was 'suffering from the slimming disease called anorexia nervosa'?
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