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Sue Townsend

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Sue Townsend

FRSL
Townsend in 2010
Townsend in 2010
BornSusan Lillian Johnstone
(1946-04-02)2 April 1946[1]
Leicester,England
Died10 April 2014(2014-04-10)(aged 68)
Leicester, England
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • playwright
  • screenwriter
  • columnist
Genre
  • Drama
  • fiction
  • screenplay
Notable works
  • Adrian Mole(books)
  • Captain Christmas and the Evil Adults(play)
Spouse
Keith Townsend
​
​
(m.1964;div.1971)​
Colin Broadway
​
(m.1986)​
Children4

Susan Lillian TownsendFRSL(néeJohnstone;2 April 1946 – 10 April 2014) was an English writer and humorist whose work encompasses novels, plays and works of journalism. She was best known for creating the characterAdrian Mole.

After writing in secret from the age of 14, Townsend first became known for her plays, her signature character first appearing in a radio drama, but her work soon expanded into other forms. She enjoyed great success in the 1980s, with her Adrian Mole books selling more copies than any other work of fiction in Britain during the decade. This series, which eventually encompassed nine books, takes the form of the character's diaries. The earliest books recount the life of a teenage boy during theThatcher years,but the sequence eventually depicts Adrian Mole in middle age.

The Queen and I(1992), another popular work which was well received, was an outlet for her republican sentiments, although theRoyal Familyis still rendered with sympathy. Both the earliest Adrian Mole book andThe Queen and Iwere adapted for the stage and enjoyed successful runs in London'sWest End.

Townsend was poor until well into her thirties and used her experiences of hardship in her work. In her later years, she experienced ill health, in part related to thediabetesshe developed in the mid-1980s, and in her last years endured serious sight and mobility problems.

Early life[edit]

Townsend was born at the Maternity Hospital in Causeway Lane,Leicester,the oldest of three sisters.[2][1]Her father had worked at a factory makingjet enginesbefore becoming apostman,while her mother worked in a factory canteen.[3]She attended Glen Hills Primary School, where the school secretary was Mrs Claricotes, a name she used for the school secretary in the Adrian Mole books.

At the age of eight, Townsend contractedmumps,and was obliged to stay at home. Her mother bought a collection ofRichmal Crompton'sJust Williambooks at ajumble salewhich Townsend read avidly. Later, she said the William Brown character was an influence on her best-known creation.[2]

After failing her11-plus exam,Townsend went to the secondary modernSouth Wigston High School.[4]During her childhood, while up a tree playing with her peers, she witnessed the murder of a fellow schoolgirl, but the children were not believed.[5]The murder was committed by Joseph Christopher Reynolds (31), convicted at Leicester Assizes for the murder of Janet Warner, and hanged by Albert Pierrepoint on 17 November 1953. It was to be the last execution carried out atLeicester Prison.

Marriage and pre-writing career[edit]

Townsend left school at the age of fourteen and worked in a variety of jobs including packer forBirds Eye,a petrol station attendant and a receptionist.[6]Working at a petrol station allowed her the chance to read between serving customers.[7]

She married Keith Townsend, asheet metalworker on 25 April 1964; the couple had three children under five by the time Townsend was 23 (Sean, Daniel, and Victoria). In 1971 the marriage ended and she became a single parent.[8]In this position, Townsend and her children endured considerable hardship. InMr Bevan's Dream: Why Britain Needs Its Welfare State(1989), a short book in theCounterblastsseries, she recounts an experience from when her eldest child was five. Because theDepartment of Social Securitywas unable to give her even 50p to tide them over, she was obliged to feed herself and her children on a tin of peas and an Oxo cube as an evening meal. Townsend would collect usedCoronabottles, to redeem the 4p return fee by which to feed her children.[9]

Aged thirteen, her son questioned one Sunday why they did not go to animal parks on weekends like other families. She later recounted that it was the start of her writing which became the Adrian Mole books, looking at life through the clinical eyes of a teenager but in a comedic manner. Townsend then chose to research the world of teenagers and started attending youth clubs as a volunteer organiser. This led to her training as a youth worker.

While employed as a supervisor at an adventure playground, she observed a man makingcanoesnearby and, because he was married, put off talking to him; it was a year before he asked her for a date.[7]It was at a canoeing course she met her future second husband, Colin Broadway, who was the father of her fourth child, Elizabeth.[1]

Townsend and Broadway married on 13 June 1986.

Transition to a writing career[edit]

Townsend's new partner encouraged her to join a writers' group at thePhoenix Theatre, Leicester,in 1978, when she was in her early thirties. Initially too shy to speak, she did not write anything for six weeks, but was then given a fortnight to write a play. This became the thirty-minute dramaWomberang(1979), set in the waiting room of agynaecologydepartment.[10]At the Phoenix, she became thewriter-in-residence.[5]

During this time she was mentored by several theatre directors including Ian Giles and principally Sue Pomeroy who commissioned and directed a number of her plays includingWomberang,Dayroom,Groping for Wordsand subsequentlyEar, Nose and Throat.She was also introduced toWilliam Ash,then chairman of the Soho Poly (nowSoho Theatre), who likewise played a significant part in shaping her early career. She met writer-directorCarole Haymanon the stairs of the Soho Poly theatre and went on to develop many theatre pieces with her for theRoyal CourtandJoint Stock,includingBazarre and RummageandThe Great Celestial Cow.They later co-wrote two television series,The RefugeandThe Spinney.[11][12]

At the time of writing the first Adrian Mole book, Townsend was living on theEyres MonsellEstate, near the house in which playwrightJoe Ortonwas brought up. Mole "came into my head when my eldest son said 'Why don't we go to safari parks like other families do?' That's the only real line of dialogue from my family that's in any of the Mole books. It's in because it triggered it. I remembered that kind of whiny, adolescent self-pity, that 'surely these are not my parents.'"[13]

Success of Adrian Mole[edit]

The first two published stories appeared in a short-lived arts' journal entitledmagazine,in the editing and production of which Townsend was involved, featuring the character then still called Nigel Mole. ActorNigel Bennetthad given her help and encouragement to persist with the work and sent the script toJohn Tydeman,the deputy head of BBC Radio Drama.[10]The character first came to national awareness in a single radio play,The Diary of Nigel Mole, Aged 13¾,broadcast byBBC Radio 4on New Year's Day 1982.[14]

Someone at the publishersMethuenheard the broadcast and commissioned Townsend to write the first book,The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾which came out in September 1982[15]The publisher insisted on the change of name because of the similarity toNigel Molesworth,the schoolboy character created byRonald SearleandGeoffrey Willans.[1]A month after the book's appearance it had topped the best seller list and had sold a million copies after a year.[3]Adapted as a play, the stage version premiered in Leicester and ran atWyndham's Theatrefor more than two years.[16]The first two books were seen by many as a realistic and humorous treatment of the inner life of an adolescent boy. They also captured something of thezeitgeistof Britain during theThatcherera.[17]

The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole(1984) was reputedly based on her children's experiences atMary Linwood Comprehensive Schoolin Leicester. Several of the teachers who appear in the book (such as Ms Fossington-Gore and Mr Dock) are based on staff who worked at the school in the early 1980s. When the book was televised, it was mostly filmed at a different school nearby. Mary Linwood Comprehensive was closed in 1997.

These first two books were adapted intoa television series,broadcast in 1985 and 1987, and a video game.

Later life and career[edit]

The Queen and I(1992) is a novel whose plot involves theRoyal Familyhave been rehoused in a council estate after a Republican revolution. Townsend had become arepublicanwhile a child. In an interview forThe Independentpublished in September 1992 she related that after finding the idea of God a ridiculous idea, an argument in favour of the British monarchy also collapsed. "I was frightened that people believed in it all, the whole package, and I must be the only one with these feelings. It was a moment of revelation, but at the same time it would have been wicked ever to mention it." In addition, she was "being taught about infinity, which I found mind-boggling. It made me feel we were all tiny, tiny specks: and if I was, then they – the Royal Family – were, too."[7]

Like the first Mole book,The Queen and Iwas adapted for the stage with songs byIan Duryand Mickey Gallagher.Michael Billingtonwrites that Townsend "was ahead of the game" in treating the royal family as a suitable subject for drama. He writes: "Far from seeming like a piece of republican propaganda, the play actually made the royals endearing."[16]A later book in a similar vein,Queen Camilla(2006), was less well received.[18][19]

On 25 February 2009,Leicester City Councilannounced that Townsend would be given the Honorary Freedom of Leicester (where she lived).[20]Townsend became aFellow of the Royal Society of Literature(FRSL) in 1993.[21]Amongst her honours and awards, she received honorary doctorates from theUniversity of Leicester,fromLoughborough UniversityandDe Montfort University,Leicester.

In 1991 Townsend appeared on BBC Radio 4'sDesert Island Discs.Her chosen book wasLucky JimbyKingsley Amisand her luxury item was aswimming poolofchampagne.[22]

Political beliefs[edit]

In 1989 Townsend publishedMr Bevan's Dream – Why Britain Needs its Welfare State,one of the series ofCounterblastessays written by such authors asPaul Foot,Marina WarnerandFay Weldonwhich critiqued, either directly or indirectly the social consequences ofThatcherism.

She describes being "mesmerised" when seeingAneurin Bevan,the prime mover of the Britishwelfare stateon television for the first time.[23]The book consists of a series of shortanecdotalstories which touch on ways in which the welfare and education systems of the day supported or (mostly) failed ordinary citizens. In "The Quick Birth", Townsend recalls the experience of giving birth to her first child, born prematurely but who survived thanks to the dedicatedNational Health Servicestaff at her local hospital in Leicester; "Community Care" deals with the treatment of vulnerable people with mental health issues; "Mr Smith's privatised penis", the final section, is a dystopian satire on a future where pavements, sunlight, fresh air and even lovemaking have been sold off to private enterprise.

"In this pamphlet, I have fallen back on the traditional working-class method for expressing ideas – the anecdote, or what is now called the" oral tradition "(which is only a fancy term for working-class people talking to each other but not bothering to record what they've heard" ).[24]

Townsend, in a 2009Guardianinterview with Alex Clark, described herself as a "passionate socialist" who had no time forNew Labour."I support the memory and the history of the party and I consider that these lot are interlopers", she told Clark.[13]Despite these comments, Townsend said in 1999 that she had only voted Labour once, and in fact, her preference was "Communist, Socialist Workers, or a minority party usually."[5]The journalistChristina Pattersonobserved of Townsend in 2008: "Her heart, it's clear from her books and a few hours in her company, is still with the people she left behind, the people who go largely unchronicled in literature, the people who are still her friends."[25]

Health problems[edit]

Townsend experienced ill health for several years. She was achain smoker,hadtuberculosis(TB),peritonitisat 23 and had aheart attackin her 30s.[1]She developeddiabetesin the 1980s.[26]It was a condition with which she struggled, believing herself to be the "world's worst diabetic".[27]The condition led to Townsend's being registered blind in 2001,[12]and she wove this theme into her work.

After experiencing kidney failure, she underwentdialysisand in September 2009 she received a kidney from her elder son Sean, after a two-year wait for a donor.[1]She also had degenerativearthritis,which left her reliant on a wheelchair.[1]By this time, she was dictating to Sean, who worked as her typist.[28][29]Surgery was carried out atLeicester General Hospitaland Townsend spoke to the BBC about her illness on an appeal for National Kidney Day.[30]

Death[edit]

Townsend died at her home on 10 April 2014, eight days after her 68th birthday, following astroke.[26][31]Stephen Mangan,who portrayed Adrian Mole in the2001 television adaptation,stated that he was "greatly upset to hear that Sue Townsend has died. One of the warmest, funniest and wisest people I ever met".[31]Townsend was survived by her husband, four children and ten grandchildren.[32]

Awards[edit]

Year Award
1981 Thames TelevisionPlaywright Award for Womberang[33]
2003 Frink award[34][35]
2007 Two honorary doctorates, one from theUniversity of Leicesterand one fromLoughborough University[36]
2007 James Joyce Awardof theLiterary and Historical SocietyofUniversity College Dublin[32]
2012 Specsavers National Book Awards,Audiobook of the Year,The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Yearnarrated byCaroline Quentin[37]
2013 honorary doctorate of letters fromDe Montfort University,Leicester[38]

Works[edit]

Adrian Mole series[edit]

Other novels[edit]

Plays[edit]

  • Womberang(Soho Poly – 1979)
  • The Ghost of Daniel Lambert(Leicester Haymarket Theatre,1981) Theatre closed in January 2006
  • Dayroom(Croydon Warehouse Theatre, 1981)
  • Captain Christmas and the Evil Adults(Phoenix Arts Theatre, 1982) now known as theSue Townsend Theatre
  • Bazaar and Rummage(Royal Court Theatre, 1982)
  • Groping for Words(Croydon Warehouse, 1983)
  • The Great Celestial Cow(Royal Court Theatre and tour, 1984)
  • The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾-The Play(Leicester Phoenix, 1984) now known asSue Townsend Theatre
  • Ear Nose and Throat(National large-scale tour Good Company Theatre Productions, 1988)
  • Disneyland It Ain't(Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 1989)
  • Ten Tiny Fingers, Nine Tiny Toes(Library Theatre, Manchester, 1989)
  • The Queen and I(Vaudeville Theatre, 1994; toured Australia in summer 1996 asThe Royals Down Under)

Non-fiction[edit]

  • Mr Bevan's Dream: Why Britain Needs Its Welfare State(1989)
  • The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman(2001)

Footnotes[edit]

  1. ^abcdefgKate KellawayObituary: Sue Townsend,The Guardian,11 April 2014
  2. ^abMarcus Williamson"Sue Townsend obituary: Author whose hapless, brilliantly drawn teenage hero, Adrian Mole, made her the best selling author of the 1980s",The Independent,11 April 2014
  3. ^abObituary: Sue Townsend,Daily Telegraph,11 April 2014
  4. ^ Collier, Kate (18 February 2005)."Leicester's leading ladies".BBC. Archived fromthe originalon 3 February 2006.Retrieved1 February2008.
  5. ^abcAnn Donald"To meet one of life's naturals",The Herald,23 October 1999
  6. ^Iain Hollingshead"Sue Townsend: the difficult years",Daily Telegraph,27 February 2012
  7. ^abc"Interview: Secret passions of a republican mole: Sue Townsend explains why she killed off the Queen Mother in a council house",The Independent,1 September 1992
  8. ^Susan Mansfield"Obituary: Sue Townsend, author",The Scotsman,12 April 2014
  9. ^Sue Townsend"Sue Townsend: how the welfare state left me and my kids scouring the streets for pennies",The Observer,13 April 2014. Extract fromMr Bevan's Dream,first published inThe Observerin 1989.
  10. ^abRichard Webber"Adrian Mole author Sue Townsend talks money",Sunday Telegraph,1 July 2012
  11. ^ "Sky Arts: The Book Show".Skyarts.co.uk. Archived fromthe originalon 13 September 2008.Retrieved1 February2008.
  12. ^ab White, Lesley (15 October 2006)."Sue Townsend".The Times.London.Retrieved1 February2008.
  13. ^abAlex Clark"'I didn't know what Adrian Mole looked like – well, not until I saw John Major on the telly'",The Guardian,7 November 2009
  14. ^"Obituary: Sue Townsend",BBC News, 11 April 2014
  15. ^David HendyLife on Air: A History of Radio Four,Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, p.373
  16. ^abMichael Billington"'Plays poured out of her'",The Guardian,11 April 2014
  17. ^Lawless, Jill (11 April 2014)."Sue Townsend, Creator of Adrian Mole, Dies at 68".ABC News. Associated Press.Retrieved12 April2014.
  18. ^Alex Clark"The country's gone to the dogs",The Observer,29 October 2006
  19. ^Tom Payne"It's no knockout",Sunday Telegraph,26 November 2006
  20. ^"City honours three of its finest 'ambassadors'".Leicester City Council. 25 February 2009.Retrieved26 February2009.
  21. ^"Susan (Sue) Townsend – Authorised Biography",Debrett's
  22. ^"BBC Radio 4 – Desert Island Discs, Sue Townsend".BBC.Retrieved29 February2020.
  23. ^S.Townsend,Mr Bevan's Dream – Why Britain needs its Welfare State,Chatto and Windus, 1989, p.8.ISBN0 7011 3468 2
  24. ^Mr Bevan's Dream,p.3
  25. ^Christina Patterson"Sue Townsend: 'I often write about my faults'",The Independent,28 November 2008
  26. ^ab"Adrian Mole author Sue Townsend dies".BBC News.11 April 2014.Retrieved11 April2014.
  27. ^Kate Kellaway"Sue Townsend: 'I hate it when people call me a national treasure'",The Observer,1 August 2010
  28. ^Anna Metcalfe"Small talk: Sue Townsend",Financial Times,16 March 2012
  29. ^Thomas Quinn"Sue Townsend interview:" I think people are overloaded with information "",The Big Issue,11 April 2014, originally published in 2012
  30. ^"Adrian Mole author Sue Townsend's kidney appeal".BBC. 10 March 2010.Retrieved12 April2014.
  31. ^abEady, Piers (11 April 2014)."Adrian Mole author Sue Townsend dies aged 68".Daily Mirror.Retrieved11 April2014.
  32. ^abThompson, Alan (11 April 2014)."Sue Townsend: The secret writer who became a best-selling author".Leicester Mercury.Archived fromthe originalon 13 April 2014.Retrieved12 April2014.
  33. ^"Sue Townsend dead: Adrian Mole 'Secret Diary' author dies at her home, aged 68".Independent.co.uk.11 April 2014.Retrieved12 April2014.
  34. ^"Sue Townsend – Woman of the Year Award".BBC. 14 October 2003.Retrieved1 February2008.
  35. ^"Women of The Year Lunch and Assembly".womenoftheyear.co.uk.Archived fromthe originalon 14 December 2007.Retrieved1 February2008.
  36. ^"Summer 2007 Oration – Sue Townsend".Loughborough University. 20 July 2007.Retrieved1 February2008.
  37. ^Alison Flood (5 December 2012)."EL James comes out on top at National Book awards".The Guardian.Retrieved5 December2012.
  38. ^DMU students (11 July 2013)."Summer Graduations 2013".De Montfort University. Archived fromthe originalon 13 April 2014.Retrieved11 April2014.

External links[edit]

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