I was very sad to
hear of the death of Sue Townsend.
I loved her books
as a kid. For me, Adrian Mole was more fact than fiction. We had all the same
neuroses – and while I never fell for an aspiring politician called Pandora, I definitely
empathised with Adrian's bad luck with the opposite sex.
(I didn't measure my extremities as often as he did though; I promise.)
It’s amazing that
a middle-aged woman could capture the voice of a teenage boy so perfectly.
Perhaps she was some kind of witch. Whatever her secret, Townsend managed to make
Adrian both likeable and irritating in equal measure; with a story that was as tragic as it was comic.
I felt as if I'd grown up alongside him. He was the friend that I'd never met. Yet I somehow had unrestricted access to his diary; weird, that.
It’s strange to
think that the force behind such a big part of my childhood has gone. At least we still have her wonderful books. I hope it will be some comfort
to her family to know that children and adults will continue to pore over her
work for as long as books are read. Forever, I hope.
She also put
Ashby-de-la-Zouch on the map. That's not to be sniffed at.