Sue Townsend

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Susan Lillian Townsend, FRSL (née Johnstone, 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 character Adrian 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 the Thatcher 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 the Royal Family is still rendered with sympathy.

Both the earliest Adrian Mole book and The Queen and I were adapted for the stage and enjoyed successful runs in London's West End. Townsend was poor until well into her thirties, and used her experiences of hardship in her work.

In her later years she suffered ill health, in part related to the diabetes she developed in the mid-1980s, and in her last years endured serious sight and mobility problems.

Early life

Townsend was born at the Maternity Hospital in Causeway Lane, Leicester, the oldest of three sisters. Her father had worked at a factory making jet engines before becoming a postman, while her mother worked in a factory canteen. 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 contracted mumps, and was obliged to stay at home. Her mother bought a collection of Richmal Crompton's Just William books at a jumble sale which Townsend read avidly. Later, she said the William Brown character was an influence on her best-known creation.

After failing her 11-plus exam, Townsend went to the secondary modern South Wigston High School. 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. 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 at Leicester Prison.

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Marriage and pre-writing career

Townsend left school at the age of 14 and worked in a variety of capacities, including packer for Birds Eye, a petrol station attendant, and a receptionist. Working at a petrol station gave her the opportunity to read between serving customers.

Keith Townsend, a sheet metal worker, married Keith Townsend on April 25, 1964; by the time Townsend was 23 years old, the pair had three children under the age of five. (Sean, Daniel, and Victoria) The marriage ended in 1971, and she became a single parent. Townsend and her children were subjected to a lot of hardship in this situation. Mr Bevan's Dream: Why Britain Depends On Its Welfare State (1989), a short book in the Counterblasts series, she relates an encounter with her eldest child when she was five. Since the Department of Social Security was unable to bring them even more, she was forced to feed herself and her children on a tin of peas and an Oxo cube as an evening meal. To pay the 4p return fee by which she would feed her children, Townsend would sell used Corona bottles.

One Sunday, her son, who was 13 years old, asked why they didn't go to animal parks on weekends like other families. She later revealed that it was the start of her writing that became the Adrian Mole books, looking at life through the clinical eyes of a teenager but in a comedic manner. Townsend then decided to explore the world of teenagers and began volunteering with youth clubs as a volunteer organizer. This led to her job as a youth worker.

She noticed a man making canoes near, but she didn't bother chatting to him, because he was married; it was a year before he asked her for a date. She met Colin Broadway, the father of her fourth child, Elizabeth, while on a canoeing course.

On June 13, 1986, Townsend and Broadway married.

Transition to a writing career

When she was in her early thirties, Townsend's new companion encouraged her to join a writers' group at Leicester's Phoenix Theatre. She was initially too shy to write for six weeks, but was given a fortnight to write a story. In the waiting room of a gynaecology department, this became the thirty-minute drama Womberang (1979). She became the writer-in-residence at the Phoenix.

During this period, she was mentored by many theatre designers, including Ian Giles and, later, Ear, Nose, and Throat, but not all. She was also introduced to William Ash, the Soho Poly (now Soho Theatre), who was also instrumental in her early career. On the stairs of the Soho Poly theatre, she met writer-director Carole Hayman and went on to create several theatre works for the Royal Court and Joint Stock, including Bazarre and Rummage and The Great Celestial Cow. The Refuge and The Spinney were two television series that co-wrote later.

Townsend was living on the Eyres Monsell Estate, which is close to the house in which playwright Joe Orton was brought up at the time. My eldest son said, "Why don't we go to safari parks like other families?" he replied. That's the only honest line of dialogue from my family that's in any of the Mole books. It's in because it caused it. "No, not my parents," I recall as a child whiny, adolescent self-pity.

Later life and career

The Queen and I (1992) is a book in which the Royal family's descendants are rehoused in a council estate after the Republican revolution. When a youth, Townsend was a republican. She related that after discovering the belief of God as a ridiculous proposition, an argument in favour of the British monarchy also collapsed in a interview published in September 1992. "I was terrified that people believed in it all, the whole package, and I suspect I was the only one with these feelings." It was a moment of discovery, but it would have been evil to mention it at the same time." In addition,, she was "being taught about infinity," which I found mind-boggling. It made me feel that we were just little, tiny specks, and that if I was, then the Royal Family would also be concerned."

The Queen and I was adapted for the stage by Ian Dury and Mickey Gallagher in the first Mole book. Townsend "was ahead of the game" in treating the royal family as a good subject for drama, according to Michael Billington. "The play actually made the royals endearing rather than seeming like a piece of republican propaganda," he writes. Queen Camilla (2006), a sequel to Queen Camilla (2006), was less well received.

Townsend will be given the Honorary Freedom of Leicester, according to Leicester City Council on February 25, 2009 (where she lived). In 1993, Townsend became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL). She earned honorary doctorates from Loughborough University and De Montfort University, Leicester, among other things among her accolades and awards.

Townsend appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 1991. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis was her favorite book, but she wanted a swimming pool of champagne.

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