On Sue Townsend

And Perfect Working Conditions

Everyone knows that Sue Townsend was wonderfully funny, and wonderfully funny partly because she was miraculously honest.

For me, as for many, she was above all the writer of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4.

It’s one of the great English comic novels. And, unlike many comic novels, especially those by men (Lucky Jim, Wilt, Small World), it’s aging very well.

With Adrian Mole, like Helen Fielding with Bridget Jones, Sue Townsend did that almost impossible thing of creating a character who became nationally known and recognised and loved. (Dickens did this every other afternoon.)

But Sue Townsend was also the writer of The Queen & I, Queen Camilla and the waiting-to-be-rediscovered Ghost Children.

While I was growing up, Sue Townsend had a big influence on me.

I was, to within about a month, the same age as Adrian Mole — and his ridiculousness had a serious effect on me being able to take myself seriously as a teenage poet, and as a young lover.

His acne was mine; his limerence, also. Oh, how my Pandoras tormented me.

And so, I was delighted when I finally got to meet Sue.

It was on the Greek island of Skyros, where she went most years. She loved it because it was warm, the food was great, and as she began to lose her sight she knew the town so well she could find her way around by feel.

But Sue was there to work as well as relax. She was one of a number of tutors offering different classes to paying guests. Among these were Painting, Yoga and Build an Altar to Your Own Chosen God (It Can Be You Yourself).

I was on Skyros because my girlfriend was writing a travel piece for the Times.

While she attended the classes, I sat in our little cottage and wrote my novel Corpsing.

But in the evenings, there were dinners, and I got to know Sue. She was everything an Adrian Mole fan would have wanted — friendly, indiscreet, a passionate smoker, a good listener.

As we were both published by Penguin, I met her quite a few more times in the following years — often at the annual author party.

I remember talking to her in the London Aquarium, leaning up against the shark tank, both hoping to spot David Beckham — because Penguin were publishing Victoria Beckham’s autobiography. She might be there. And he might be there.

By this time, Sue had gone almost completely blind. She wore big brown glasses and mentioned not really being able to see David Beckham, even if he’d been right in front of her. But she was still the best company, and I wish I’d known her better.

She told me she admired my novel deadkidsongs, but that she found it very disturbing. Thinking about it now, that book is a kind of anti-Adrian Mole view of boyhood.

I can’t say whether it was on Skyros, or later, that she told me about her writing room. That’s what I wanted to tell you about today.

Once the money from Adrian Mole — the original book, the follow-ups, the TV shows — transformed (or attempted to transform) Sue’s life, she was able to have an architect design and build for her a top-floor workspace with a large windows and a huge writing desk and bookshelves and whatnot.

It was intended to create perfect working conditions.

‘And,’ said Sue, with mischievous dismay, ‘I’ve never written a word up there. I can hardly bear to go in.’

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘I’m so embarrassed by it,’ she said.

I laughed — finding this very easy to picture. She often talked about embarrassment and shame. They were her territory.

‘I still write in the corner of the front room, or on the kitchen table,’ she said. ‘With the ironing off to one side, if I can make space.’