Remembering Adrian Mole and Sue Townsend on their birthdays today

[OneBusyFinch]

oh these wonderful wonderful books, still make me laugh and I do re-read frequently!

Adrian would have been 58 today and the superb Sue Townsend would have been celebrating her 80th birthday.

I love how layered the humour was. That entry where Pauline gives Adrian £20 to buy food for the week, and he comes home with a load of raw ingredients…

Pauline: “but what about the bread?”
Adrian: “you have all the ingredients here to make bread”

Reading this as a young teen, I thought Adrian had been quite clever. As an adult with young DC, I’m like “oh God poor Pauline!”.

" It is the first day of spring. The council have chopped down all the Elms on Elm Tree Avenue". 😆

The description of the school trip to London is one of my favourite pieces of comic writing

‘I was woken up by Mr Porke shouting ‘only one piece of bacon per plate Beryl. Are you trying to ruin me?’

‘we sat in a wind shelter on the promenade and he informed me and my mother that he was the father of Stick Insect’s one day old baby boy. About sixty hours passed, then my mother said, ‘what’s he called?’ My father said ‘Brett. Sorry’

her genius was to take such tragedy and make it comic

Oooh thanks for this!

Do you weep, Mrs Thatcher, do you weep?
Do you wake, Mrs Thatcher, in your sleep?
Do you weep like a sad willow
On your Marks and Spencer pillow
Are your tears molten steel,
Do you weep?

Yes I’m certain he did - he was just about to become a grandfather and that would have been a wonderful rich seam of comedy x

‘Nigel says that Sharon Botts will show everything for 50p and a pound of grapes.’

🤣🤣

So funny. I am going to have to reread them all (again!) now.

Yes! I loved how assertive she made Pauline

’correction - YOU have all the ingredients to make bread’ 😂

loved when she came back from a workshop and made a list of all household tasks and split it between the 3 of them.

and when Adrian put a note on his door because he was sick of his privacy being invaded, he was late for school the next day and his washing wasn’t done because his Mum chose to take him literally and suffer the consequences 😂

I have often thought this. He would have been such a curtain twitcher during Lockdown!

The tv series was great too with Julie Walters as his mum! https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiZCl6XIGf-iafxFjzV-1poqGIbrnFltd&si=-Q4Brwk4_2YKPWot

I cried laughing when I first read it. I still laugh when I read it and I can’t describe it to anyone without dissolving into giggles - absolute genius!

The Secret Diary was bloody brilliant.

I’m 54 now, but can still remember my mum coming into my room one night, as she thought I was crying. I sort of was, with laughter, reading the book.

I've just ordered the box set so I can read them all again thanks to this reminder! 😆

She was a total genius and one of a kind for sure.

Gian Sammarco, who played Adrian, is now 58 and works at the Berrywood Hospital as a psychiatric nurse.

I loved all the tv shows of Adrian and read the books multiple times! Adrian was hilarious!

They were like the definition of ‘books for escapism’. I remember just sitting for hours!

Brilliant books. I read them as a teenager and again a few years ago. Her observations of people was excellent.
I really loved the bit when he’s painting over the Noddy wallpaper. I often think about that when I see fancy wall paper in people’s houses and think how difficult it was to paint over Noddy 😂
I love the book about the royal family having to move to a council estate too.

The school trip is the best bit for me (don't remember which book). Ate his packed lunch and was sick before the bus left the school car park.

Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland

The Queen and I

I also enjoyed: Queen Camilla (not about the royal)

The Queen and I

Ghost Children- very dark!

The Queen and I - that’s the one! Thank you @TheBeaTgoeson1 and @Whosthetabbynow

Not read ghost children or Queen Camilla, will add them to the very long TBR list.

That has happened to a child I taught…. No other member of staff go the Adrian Mole reference sadly.

I'm also the same age as Adrian Mole and loved the books!
The dog known only as "the dog", Neil Armstrong Comprehensive School, best friend Nigel, Ms Fossington-Gore...!

On doing badly in exams "I may be an intellectual, but at the same time, I'm not very bright" 😅