mostly david ephgrave

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 ...