0:00:02 > 0:00:04"Saturday, January the 24th.
0:00:04 > 0:00:08"Today was the most terrible day of my life.
0:00:08 > 0:00:11"Pandora is going out with Nigel!
0:00:13 > 0:00:15"I think I will never get over the shock."
0:00:15 > 0:00:19"Sunday, January the 25th, 10am.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23"I am ill with all the worry, too weak to write much.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27"Nobody has noticed I haven't eaten any breakfast."
0:00:27 > 0:00:31"2pm - had two junior aspirins at midday and rallied a bit.
0:00:33 > 0:00:34HE SIGHS
0:00:34 > 0:00:38"Perhaps when I'm famous, and my diary is discovered,
0:00:38 > 0:00:40"people will understand the torment
0:00:40 > 0:00:44"of being a 13¾-year-old undiscovered intellectual."
0:00:45 > 0:00:48"My thing has got a life of its own.
0:00:48 > 0:00:50"It keeps growing and shrinking.
0:00:50 > 0:00:51"I can't control it."
0:00:55 > 0:00:56Sue Townsend created
0:00:56 > 0:01:00one of literature's most unlikely comic heroes.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03How do you get inside the head of a 14-year-old boy?
0:01:03 > 0:01:05I used a power drill.
0:01:05 > 0:01:09Mole was the bestselling book of the entire 1980s. It was huge.
0:01:10 > 0:01:14But what's remarkable is that we've heard of Sue Townsend at all.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17I was writing secretly from when I was 15, from when I left school.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20- A closet writer? - I was a closet writer for 20 years.
0:01:21 > 0:01:23You almost feel like this stuff is pouring out of her,
0:01:23 > 0:01:26and she's almost like, "What can I write on next?"
0:01:29 > 0:01:33A single mother from a council estate, with no qualifications,
0:01:33 > 0:01:37Sue would face poverty, trauma and disability.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40It was all stacked against her, really.
0:01:40 > 0:01:44So I think the fact she did what she did made it even more phenomenal.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49This is Sue's incredible story,
0:01:49 > 0:01:52told with help from her friends and family...
0:01:52 > 0:01:53She stuck up for people.
0:01:53 > 0:01:54That's what her work is.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57It's, "I'm standing up for something I believe in."
0:01:57 > 0:02:00..brought to life by the community that inspired her...
0:02:02 > 0:02:04..and, of course, by Sue herself,
0:02:04 > 0:02:07in her own unmistakable voice.
0:02:08 > 0:02:09'I'm 45.
0:02:09 > 0:02:11'I've had heart trouble.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13'I'm diabetic, and I've had four children.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17'I've certainly had my whack out of the National Health Service.
0:02:17 > 0:02:18'These bags under my eyes
0:02:18 > 0:02:21'represent a lifetime of reading until the early hours,
0:02:21 > 0:02:25'of midnight feeds, of waiting for teenagers to come home.
0:02:26 > 0:02:28'But let's take a closer look.'
0:02:38 > 0:02:40At an ordinary school in Leicester,
0:02:40 > 0:02:45a girl named Susan Johnstone would grow up to create a modern classic.
0:02:48 > 0:02:50SCHOOL BELL RINGS
0:02:53 > 0:02:55For over 34 years,
0:02:55 > 0:02:59The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾
0:02:59 > 0:03:03has perfectly captured our awkward teenage years.
0:03:03 > 0:03:05"Pandora has got hair the colour of treacle,
0:03:05 > 0:03:07"and it's long, like girls' hair should be."
0:03:07 > 0:03:10What are his feelings about Pandora?
0:03:10 > 0:03:12- He loves her.- He loves her.
0:03:12 > 0:03:14How do we know that he...?
0:03:15 > 0:03:19Adrian's anxieties still resonate with teenagers today.
0:03:20 > 0:03:24We're all kind of close to 13¾.
0:03:24 > 0:03:26When he relates to, like, love,
0:03:26 > 0:03:30and he doesn't really know how to portray his emotions, like,
0:03:30 > 0:03:33we just start obviously learning about things like that.
0:03:33 > 0:03:35OK, this is weird, it's new,
0:03:35 > 0:03:37and that's kind of how Adrian feels -
0:03:37 > 0:03:38he doesn't know what to feel.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41I know where he's coming from, cos, like...
0:03:41 > 0:03:43I've been out with quite a few girls!
0:03:46 > 0:03:50"Pandora's got the same colour eyes as our dog.
0:03:50 > 0:03:53"She's got quite a good figure.
0:03:53 > 0:03:55"Her chest is wobbling like mad.
0:03:55 > 0:03:57"I feel a bit funny.
0:03:57 > 0:03:58"I think this is it."
0:04:00 > 0:04:03The diary's frank teenage voice had us all hooked.
0:04:04 > 0:04:06But who was the real Adrian Mole?
0:04:07 > 0:04:09Adrian Mole and I share the same birthday,
0:04:09 > 0:04:12and I think that's one of the...
0:04:12 > 0:04:14- clues. - SHE LAUGHS
0:04:14 > 0:04:16I think I'm quite an Adrian Mole character, you see.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21I think I am. He's a secret writer.
0:04:21 > 0:04:22Erm...
0:04:24 > 0:04:26His views are often my views.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37Leicester is where I was born, and I expect where I'll die.
0:04:37 > 0:04:39Middle England.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43Landlocked. Neat, tidy, ordered, respectable.
0:04:43 > 0:04:47Its motto is "semper eadem" - always the same.
0:04:47 > 0:04:49Quintessentially English.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54I wanted to be a writer so much, it was painful,
0:04:54 > 0:04:57because I knew I never would be.
0:04:57 > 0:04:59It was an impossible thing to want -
0:04:59 > 0:05:01hardly admitted it to myself.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05You knew that you were either going into the shoe factory
0:05:05 > 0:05:07or the boot factory.
0:05:07 > 0:05:09Or the sock factory.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13And there was no possibility of being anything else.
0:05:20 > 0:05:27On her first day of school, Sue made two lifelong friends, Jean and Joan.
0:05:27 > 0:05:29- Ooh, lovely.- There we go.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36This is Sue, messing about. She's laddered her tights.
0:05:36 > 0:05:38But that's typical of Sue.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41When we were 11, we took the eleven-plus,
0:05:41 > 0:05:47and we were told at 11 that if you fail this exam,
0:05:47 > 0:05:49you won't aspire to anything.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52Well, of course, we all of us failed the eleven-plus,
0:05:52 > 0:05:55which was why we were at South Wigston.
0:05:55 > 0:06:01So the expectations were that we wouldn't have professions,
0:06:01 > 0:06:04we would just get married and have lots of babies,
0:06:04 > 0:06:08and that was our sort of job in life, so to speak.
0:06:08 > 0:06:11Yes, Susan. Go and get your pen.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16But the young Sue Johnstone never was one to conform.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19She came to the conclusion that, you know,
0:06:19 > 0:06:22if there were some lessons that perhaps she didn't like,
0:06:22 > 0:06:27she suddenly started to turn up in brightly coloured odd socks.
0:06:27 > 0:06:32And, of course, the teachers would send her home to get them changed.
0:06:33 > 0:06:37Off she'd trot, and she'd saunter back in at lunchtime,
0:06:37 > 0:06:39having missed many lessons.
0:06:39 > 0:06:40Usually maths.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43Yes, usually maths, that she hated.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47And the teachers never caught on to her missing-lessons plan.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50- But Sue was so easy to get on with. - Yeah.
0:06:50 > 0:06:52She was so funny as well, wasn't she?
0:06:52 > 0:06:54Oh, she was.
0:06:54 > 0:07:00I mean, she could turn any situation into something to laugh at.
0:07:00 > 0:07:02"I've decided not to take my O levels.
0:07:02 > 0:07:03"I'm bound to fail them anyway,
0:07:03 > 0:07:06"so why waste all that neurosis on worrying?
0:07:06 > 0:07:08"I'll need all the neurosis I can get
0:07:08 > 0:07:10"when I start writing for a living."
0:07:10 > 0:07:12SCHOOL BELL RINGS
0:07:12 > 0:07:16In 1961, at the age of just 14, Sue left school.
0:07:19 > 0:07:22- You had a variety of jobs then, didn't you?- Yes.
0:07:22 > 0:07:24After that, when you left school,
0:07:24 > 0:07:26- before you became a professional full-time writer.- Yes.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29Worked in a frock shop, didn't you?
0:07:29 > 0:07:30Only for a fortnight, yeah.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33I was found reading in a cubicle. I was reading Oscar Wilde.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36- In a cubicle? - Yes, so I got the sack, instantly.
0:07:38 > 0:07:43Stuck in a series of dead-end jobs, Sue would educate herself...
0:07:45 > 0:07:46..through reading.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49When I was Adrian Mole's age, I was very pretentious.
0:07:51 > 0:07:52Um, excuse me...
0:07:52 > 0:07:54Have you got a book called Prejudice Or Pride
0:07:54 > 0:07:55by a woman called Jane Austen?
0:07:55 > 0:07:57- SHE CHUCKLES - Yes.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01"I could tell she was impressed.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04"Perhaps she is an intellectual, like me."
0:08:05 > 0:08:08I had no reading plan, I had no guidance.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10And so I stumbled onto Dostoevsky,
0:08:10 > 0:08:13but I did not know how to pronounce his name.
0:08:14 > 0:08:18So I went up to a Bohemian-looking man in a cafe,
0:08:18 > 0:08:21and said, "Do you know how to pronounce this?"
0:08:21 > 0:08:24And this man very kindly told me how to pronounce it.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28And he then recommended other books that I SHOULD read.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33In Leicester's coffee shops and jazz cafes,
0:08:33 > 0:08:38Sue reinvented herself as a Bohemian teenage intellectual.
0:08:38 > 0:08:41She always carried a tin of boot polish.
0:08:41 > 0:08:42Cherry Blossom.
0:08:42 > 0:08:44The white boots went on.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47The Cherry Blossom went on her eyes. Cos she couldn't afford mascara.
0:08:47 > 0:08:54She turned herself into this sort of French starlet that she admired.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56I modelled myself on Juliette Greco -
0:08:56 > 0:08:59the white face, pale lips,
0:08:59 > 0:09:01a pound of mascara on each eye.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03# Mais toi ma petite Tu marches tout droit
0:09:03 > 0:09:05# Vers sque tu vois pas. #
0:09:06 > 0:09:09I started writing then, as well.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11I started writing autobiographical stuff.
0:09:13 > 0:09:15I wanted to make my own world.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18I didn't want to live in other people's worlds.
0:09:18 > 0:09:20I wanted to make a different life.
0:09:24 > 0:09:28At the age of 16, Sue fell in love with a sheet-metal worker
0:09:28 > 0:09:30called Keith Townsend.
0:09:33 > 0:09:37Like all of us, in that era, she married very young...
0:09:38 > 0:09:41..and she had a young family.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44I was married to a man who didn't know that I was writing.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47And that man was actually literally sitting on my work,
0:09:47 > 0:09:51because I used to hide it under the sofa cushions.
0:09:52 > 0:09:56But I had no particular voice of my own at that time.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58And it took 20 years to find it.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02When he left her,
0:10:02 > 0:10:04she was absolutely devastated,
0:10:04 > 0:10:06and very, very shocked and surprised.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10And it was around that time that I think she became quite agoraphobic
0:10:10 > 0:10:13and quite ill, really.
0:10:13 > 0:10:17I do know that she had a couple of very, very difficult,
0:10:17 > 0:10:20unhappy years then and, of course, she was still very young.
0:10:21 > 0:10:23With the marriage breaking up,
0:10:23 > 0:10:27there was this phrase at the time that it was better for the children.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30"Oh, it's much worse if the parents stay together."
0:10:30 > 0:10:32Actually, that's not true.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35Give that smarmy bugger one for me!
0:10:35 > 0:10:37It's the wee boy I feel sorry for.
0:10:37 > 0:10:39Let's not fool ourselves into thinking
0:10:39 > 0:10:43it's not the most terrible tragedy for children - it is.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46I wanted to remind people about that.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53In 1969, at the age of just 23,
0:10:53 > 0:10:56Sue was a single mother with three kids under five.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00She would struggle to make ends meet.
0:11:01 > 0:11:07I know what it is like to have that kind of panic about the future.
0:11:10 > 0:11:12You're completely living - teetering -
0:11:12 > 0:11:15on the very edge the whole time.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22"I was too proud to stop passers-by and ask for help.
0:11:22 > 0:11:25"I scanned the pavements, looking for money.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30"Instead, I found lemonade bottles, Corona brand.
0:11:30 > 0:11:33"There was a returnable deposit of 4p on each bottle.
0:11:34 > 0:11:35"My oldest son cheered up -
0:11:35 > 0:11:38"he knew that these bottles represented hard cash.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42"My pride vanished. I looked in litter bins,
0:11:42 > 0:11:44"I looked over walls and behind fences."
0:11:52 > 0:11:54But through it all, Sue carried on writing.
0:11:56 > 0:12:00And in 1975, in this council house,
0:12:00 > 0:12:04she hit on the idea that would change her life.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07It was one of those Sunday afternoons.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11I was sitting with my three children, in a council house.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13We had no money.
0:12:13 > 0:12:18And my eldest son said to me, "Mum, why don't we go to safari parks,
0:12:18 > 0:12:20"like other families do?"
0:12:21 > 0:12:27It reminded me of how we gradually begin to examine our parents
0:12:27 > 0:12:31very carefully, with that very cold eye of adolescence.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35And so, I actually heard my son's voice,
0:12:35 > 0:12:39and then I heard a comical version of that voice.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43"Bored stiff all day.
0:12:43 > 0:12:46"My parents never do anything on Sundays but read the Sunday papers.
0:12:46 > 0:12:51"Other families go out to safari parks et cetera, but we never do.
0:12:51 > 0:12:52"When I'm a parent,
0:12:52 > 0:12:55"I'll fill my children with stimulation at weekends."
0:12:57 > 0:12:58Everything flowed from there.
0:13:00 > 0:13:04For the next five years, Sue would keep Adrian Mole a secret.
0:13:08 > 0:13:11All the while, she was gathering information about his world.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14MUSIC: Clever Trevor by Ian Dury and the Blockheads
0:13:17 > 0:13:19# Just cos I ain't never had no nothing worth having
0:13:19 > 0:13:21# Never ever, never
0:13:21 > 0:13:23# Ever
0:13:27 > 0:13:29# You ain't got no call not to think I wouldn't fall
0:13:29 > 0:13:30# Into thinking that I ain't too
0:13:32 > 0:13:33# Clever... #
0:13:35 > 0:13:36I took the usual route
0:13:36 > 0:13:39of actually going to a playgroup and helping out there,
0:13:39 > 0:13:41although it was bedlam.
0:13:41 > 0:13:43And one of the workers said that
0:13:43 > 0:13:46he thought I'd be quite good as a youth worker.
0:13:46 > 0:13:48I was desperate for money!
0:13:48 > 0:13:51And I actually did the training and worked for many, many years
0:13:51 > 0:13:54in a youth club in the evenings when the children were in bed.
0:13:55 > 0:14:00Goldhill Adventure Playground was co-founded by Sue in 1974,
0:14:00 > 0:14:03for kids from a deprived council estate in Leicester.
0:14:05 > 0:14:08They used to have the swings there, didn't they? Remember the swings?
0:14:08 > 0:14:10- The metal frame swings. - Yeah, the metal frame swings.
0:14:10 > 0:14:14- They were the big swings. They went really high.- Yeah.- Remember?- Yeah.
0:14:14 > 0:14:15We had nothing.
0:14:15 > 0:14:19She'd sit and talk to us, listen to us, read us books.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22You know, just all sitting round the campfire.
0:14:22 > 0:14:25This were my saviour, without a doubt, you know -
0:14:25 > 0:14:28this were my saviour as a kid.
0:14:28 > 0:14:32You felt more at ease talking to Sue than your own parents sometimes,
0:14:32 > 0:14:35cos you didn't really talk to your parents about things.
0:14:35 > 0:14:37Well, I certainly didn't, about growing up,
0:14:37 > 0:14:39but you could tell Sue anything.
0:14:46 > 0:14:48I think it's more from listening to them,
0:14:48 > 0:14:51and knowing how very sentimental they mainly were about their own
0:14:51 > 0:14:55families. Most parents won't know this because they don't hear their
0:14:55 > 0:14:58children talking frankly to their own age group,
0:14:58 > 0:15:01but they're very sentimental about their families.
0:15:02 > 0:15:05And they're very conscious of the atmosphere at home,
0:15:05 > 0:15:08and they bring it out to the youth club with them, discuss it endlessly.
0:15:08 > 0:15:13And so, I really did want to pass on a piece of my knowledge about adolescent boys...
0:15:14 > 0:15:18..because I'd always got on extremely well with them.
0:15:18 > 0:15:19I found them quite endearing.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29Adrian's diary might have stayed secret forever,
0:15:29 > 0:15:32if Sue hadn't met Colin Broadway.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40Apparently she first saw me when I was walking some geese
0:15:40 > 0:15:44across a zebra crossing in Highfields.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47And asked a friend of mine
0:15:47 > 0:15:49who she was with
0:15:49 > 0:15:53and who she was working with, "Who's that strange bloke?"
0:15:53 > 0:15:55We met a couple of weeks later.
0:15:55 > 0:15:59She said, "I knew when I looked at him, I'm going to marry him."
0:15:59 > 0:16:01I said, "Fair enough!"
0:16:01 > 0:16:03And she did!
0:16:04 > 0:16:07Yeah, Sue and I were together for about four or five years
0:16:07 > 0:16:10before I actually realised she was writing
0:16:10 > 0:16:12or had any real interest in writing.
0:16:13 > 0:16:17I rejected myself for 20 years.
0:16:17 > 0:16:19And it was only my second husband
0:16:19 > 0:16:22who suggested that I join a writers' group.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25So then I started writing plays - I had to write them, for my homework.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28So I wrote a play, quite quickly, in a fortnight,
0:16:28 > 0:16:30and took it in and they did it.
0:16:30 > 0:16:31Womberang.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36Womberang was a comedy set in a gynaecological waiting room.
0:16:38 > 0:16:42Therapy - that's where they all sit around and tell everyone
0:16:42 > 0:16:44in the group what they really think -
0:16:44 > 0:16:46REALLY think -
0:16:46 > 0:16:50like, say if someone's got dirty teeth, they tell them,
0:16:50 > 0:16:52"I think you should clean your teeth."
0:16:52 > 0:16:57Awful, isn't it? Or if they've got a bogey in their nose, you tell them.
0:16:57 > 0:16:59You tell them all about when you were a kid,
0:16:59 > 0:17:02if your husband drives you mad when he's eating.
0:17:02 > 0:17:04Things you wouldn't normally tell nobody.
0:17:06 > 0:17:08Sue's secret writing was out.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13Witty, brutal and honest, it attracted immediate attention.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16It won me a Thames Television bursary
0:17:16 > 0:17:18and from that I got an agent,
0:17:18 > 0:17:20and then you're sort of in the business.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24When she got her bursary cheque, which was a thousand quid,
0:17:24 > 0:17:27which she was supposed to survive a year on, as soon as it arrived,
0:17:27 > 0:17:31she went out the door and gave the dustbin men who were there
0:17:31 > 0:17:33a fiver tip!
0:17:33 > 0:17:35Just... That's what she was like.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40The £1,000 was never going to last a year.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47It was, in fact, the BBC, wasn't it,
0:17:47 > 0:17:50who first spotted Adrian Mole in 1980?
0:17:50 > 0:17:52Yes, it was John Tydeman,
0:17:52 > 0:17:55who features in the Mole books but is a real person -
0:17:55 > 0:17:57in fact, he's head of BBC Drama now.
0:17:58 > 0:18:02"BBC Broadcasting Corporation, the 17th of September.
0:18:03 > 0:18:05"Dear Adrian Mole,
0:18:05 > 0:18:08"Thank you for your latest letter.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12"Undated. You must - if you are going to be a writer,
0:18:12 > 0:18:16"and even if you are not - date your letters.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19"We file them, of course - the BBC has lots of files.
0:18:20 > 0:18:23"Some of the files are very valuable."
0:18:27 > 0:18:29When I read it, I thought it was marvellous.
0:18:29 > 0:18:30I mean, I fell about with laughter.
0:18:30 > 0:18:35I thought it was so wonderful, so funny and so tender, and...
0:18:36 > 0:18:38..unusual. You know, a bit of Just William there,
0:18:38 > 0:18:40and a bit of a lot of other things.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43But it had its own voice.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46So I then got in touch with Sue Townsend,
0:18:46 > 0:18:49we smoked a lot of cigarettes together and spoke and I said,
0:18:49 > 0:18:52"Look, Sue, I really think it has to be done and we're going to do it."
0:18:53 > 0:18:58"I have written a poem and it only took me two minutes.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00"Even famous poets take longer than that."
0:19:03 > 0:19:07The public heard Mole for the first time through a BBC radio play,
0:19:07 > 0:19:10broadcast on the 2nd of January 1982.
0:19:11 > 0:19:13Back then, he was called Nigel.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17"The Tap, by Nigel Mole.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21"The tap drips and keeps me awake
0:19:21 > 0:19:23"In the morning there will be a lake
0:19:23 > 0:19:26"For the want of a washer, the carpet will spoil
0:19:26 > 0:19:29"Then for another, my father will toil
0:19:29 > 0:19:32"My father could snuff it while he is at work
0:19:32 > 0:19:34"Dad, fit a washer Don't be a berk."
0:19:37 > 0:19:41It was unbelievable! The listeners who wrote in, or rang up the BBC,
0:19:41 > 0:19:43and said, "What is this?" and so on.
0:19:43 > 0:19:48I mean, the response was quite, quite extraordinary.
0:19:48 > 0:19:50Quickly signed by publishers Methuen,
0:19:50 > 0:19:52Sue turned her play into a book.
0:20:00 > 0:20:04The University of Leicester library holds Sue's original manuscripts.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10Stephen Mangan would one day play the grown-up Mole.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15This is her actual handwritten
0:20:15 > 0:20:19The Secret Diary of Nigel Mole, Aged 14¾.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22Well, even a genius doesn't get it right entirely the first time round,
0:20:22 > 0:20:27obviously. Trevor, Clive, Daniel, Melvin, Mervyn, Malcolm, Thomas...
0:20:27 > 0:20:29Darius. There's a Steven, I notice.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32Steven Mole. Not quite the same, is it?
0:20:32 > 0:20:35And then at the end, two Adrians.
0:20:35 > 0:20:36Adrian is born.
0:20:38 > 0:20:39Here we go - she's off.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42Sue never learned to type,
0:20:42 > 0:20:45and throughout her career would continue to write by hand.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51I mean, it's just page after page, written in all different pens,
0:20:51 > 0:20:53on all different types of paper.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56You almost feel like she's just... This stuff is pouring out of her,
0:20:56 > 0:20:59and she's almost like, "What can I write on next?"
0:21:07 > 0:21:08Just passing my birthday -
0:21:08 > 0:21:11I have to see what happens to Adrian on my birthday.
0:21:11 > 0:21:13"Helped Grandma with the weekend shopping.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15"She was dead fierce in the grocer's.
0:21:15 > 0:21:17"She watched the scales like a hawk watching a field mouse."
0:21:18 > 0:21:19I mean...
0:21:22 > 0:21:25You could almost pick any line at random, and it's funny.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28"I gave Barry Kent his protection money today.
0:21:29 > 0:21:31"I don't see how there can be a God."
0:21:35 > 0:21:37- SUE TOWNSEND:- Well, I had no idea, of course,
0:21:37 > 0:21:41that the book was going to sell more than a few copies.
0:21:43 > 0:21:46In fact, it sold 20 million,
0:21:46 > 0:21:48and was translated into 48 languages.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53Mole was the bestselling book of the entire 1980s, you know.
0:21:53 > 0:21:54It was huge.
0:21:56 > 0:22:00Overnight, the housewife from Leicester became a household name.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03It's Sue Townsend! Yes, thank you, Terry!
0:22:08 > 0:22:11Now, he has very, very peculiar family.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14- Do you think so?- Mmm. - You've led a sheltered life!
0:22:14 > 0:22:16LAUGHTER
0:22:19 > 0:22:23The diary spawned a bestselling sequel, a stage play
0:22:23 > 0:22:25and a star-studded TV adaptation.
0:22:28 > 0:22:29Do you all think you're going to be Adrian Mole?
0:22:29 > 0:22:32- I hope so, yes.- Definitely, yeah.
0:22:32 > 0:22:33I've got a spot.
0:22:37 > 0:22:38Just my luck.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43Spots on my chin for the first day of the New Year.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52# My mother's heart and soul have gone half way up the pole
0:22:52 > 0:22:56# My father's on the dole, my friend Bertie's much too old... #
0:22:56 > 0:22:58Obviously, what's timeless about Adrian Mole is this picture of
0:22:58 > 0:23:01adolescence, which everyone can identify with.
0:23:01 > 0:23:04But what's interesting, when you go back and look at it,
0:23:04 > 0:23:08is just how detailed the critique is about a specific time,
0:23:08 > 0:23:09which was Thatcher's Britain.
0:23:09 > 0:23:14And Sue Townsend was quite a political writer, always.
0:23:14 > 0:23:19And it's smuggled in in the guise of comedy.
0:23:19 > 0:23:21But a lot of it is quite a bleak portrait
0:23:21 > 0:23:24of the effect of Thatcherism
0:23:24 > 0:23:27on those whom Sue felt it had left behind.
0:23:29 > 0:23:33All our kids were growing up in the Thatcher years and were at school,
0:23:33 > 0:23:37and were told they had no hope when they leave school,
0:23:37 > 0:23:39there's nowhere to go, nothing for them.
0:23:39 > 0:23:41They would all be put on the scrapheap.
0:23:41 > 0:23:43So there was no hope for Adrian.
0:23:43 > 0:23:47What was he going to do when he left school? He had nothing.
0:23:54 > 0:23:57"Mrs Thatcher by A Mole.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00"Do you weep, Mrs Thatcher? Do you weep?
0:24:00 > 0:24:04"Do you wake, Mrs Thatcher, in your sleep?
0:24:04 > 0:24:10"Do you weep like a sad willow on your Marks & Spencer's pillow?
0:24:10 > 0:24:13"Are your tears molten steel?
0:24:13 > 0:24:14"Do you weep?
0:24:16 > 0:24:20"Do you wake with three million on your brain?
0:24:20 > 0:24:23"Are you sorry that they'll never work again?
0:24:24 > 0:24:29"When you're dressing in your blue, do you see the waiting queue?
0:24:29 > 0:24:32"Do you weep, Mrs Thatcher, do you weep?
0:24:35 > 0:24:37"I think my poem is extremely brilliant.
0:24:37 > 0:24:41"It is the sort of poem that could bring the Government to its knees."
0:24:48 > 0:24:51I think Adrian Mole is clearly part of a British comic novel tradition
0:24:51 > 0:24:54that maybe starts with Diary Of A Nobody
0:24:54 > 0:24:56and goes through Evelyn Waugh,
0:24:56 > 0:25:01Kingsley Amis and PG Wodehouse, which is about
0:25:01 > 0:25:04finding comedy in the banality of everyday life,
0:25:04 > 0:25:06suburban life, domestic life.
0:25:07 > 0:25:10But the great innovation is that it's not posh,
0:25:10 > 0:25:12it's not middle-class life.
0:25:12 > 0:25:16I think the British comic novel, generally speaking,
0:25:16 > 0:25:18tends to be about the middle classes, and this isn't.
0:25:19 > 0:25:21The rhythm of the diary form,
0:25:21 > 0:25:24the way some entries are just brilliant jokes,
0:25:24 > 0:25:27the sense that you know more than the character does.
0:25:27 > 0:25:32I see her influence a lot in things like The Royle Family,
0:25:32 > 0:25:37or comedies which show everyday life in a slightly heightened way
0:25:37 > 0:25:39and are satirical, but still warm.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43And that's a tradition that carries on through another very successful
0:25:43 > 0:25:45great comic novel, Bridget Jones.
0:25:45 > 0:25:50I'm sure there's a whole generation of comic writers now,
0:25:50 > 0:25:54who read it as teenagers and thought,
0:25:54 > 0:25:57"Yes, this is the voice that I aspire to."
0:25:58 > 0:26:03That unmistakable voice - frank, poignant, but always funny -
0:26:03 > 0:26:05made Sue a star.
0:26:05 > 0:26:09But in 1983, a year after the success of Adrian Mole,
0:26:09 > 0:26:12she was still living in a small terraced house
0:26:12 > 0:26:14in the Highfields district of Leicester.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18So Giles Gordon was her first agent.
0:26:18 > 0:26:20He said, "Are you sitting down, sitting comfortably?"
0:26:20 > 0:26:22She said, "Yes."
0:26:22 > 0:26:24He said, "You've got a royalty cheque coming for over £1 million."
0:26:24 > 0:26:30And it just was literally a cheque that arrived through the door, on the doormat.
0:26:30 > 0:26:36# She can do anything she wants to do
0:26:37 > 0:26:43# Anything she wants to do, she can do... #
0:26:43 > 0:26:46There was never any airs and graces with her.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49And yet, when we were at school, she always used to say to me,
0:26:49 > 0:26:54"Ooh, you know, if ever I make a lot of money,
0:26:54 > 0:26:56"I'm going to live in Stoneygate."
0:26:56 > 0:27:01- Cos Stoneygate was the area to be if you made it in Leicester.- Yeah.
0:27:01 > 0:27:04- And that's what she did. - And that's what she did.- Yeah.
0:27:05 > 0:27:11# Anyone she wants to be, she can be... #
0:27:11 > 0:27:13We moved house - that was the big thing.
0:27:13 > 0:27:17She got her mother a house, and then various other relations,
0:27:17 > 0:27:18then all the kids got houses.
0:27:20 > 0:27:22That's where the money went, really. She didn't keep it.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25We never had any money.
0:27:25 > 0:27:29It was like... It was just... It was used to buy things for people.
0:27:31 > 0:27:36I think it's extremely interesting that she didn't move to London.
0:27:36 > 0:27:38She stayed in Leicester all of her life.
0:27:38 > 0:27:42It was very important to her, as a touchstone,
0:27:42 > 0:27:44that she was surrounded
0:27:44 > 0:27:46by things she'd known since she grew up.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58- She spent hours in that Regency Cafe, didn't she?- Yeah.
0:27:58 > 0:28:00- Just watching people.- Yeah.
0:28:00 > 0:28:05And just watching the world go by and absorbing it all in.
0:28:07 > 0:28:11Sue's fascination with the people of Leicester would inspire more than
0:28:11 > 0:28:13just the diaries of an awkward adolescent.
0:28:15 > 0:28:18In 1984, her observant eye would take her
0:28:18 > 0:28:20inside a very different world.
0:28:22 > 0:28:24We were walking about Leicester
0:28:24 > 0:28:27and we had stopped, I think, to have a coffee,
0:28:27 > 0:28:31and opposite us was a factory wall and gate.
0:28:31 > 0:28:34And a gaggle of women in saris came through,
0:28:34 > 0:28:37laughing and talking amongst themselves.
0:28:37 > 0:28:39And that's where the play started.
0:28:41 > 0:28:44The Great Celestial Cow is about the Asian community in Leicester.
0:28:44 > 0:28:48I lived amongst the Asian community in Leicester for about ten years.
0:28:48 > 0:28:50It's about the women,
0:28:50 > 0:28:54who were quite mysterious and enigmatic figures to me.
0:28:54 > 0:28:57I wanted to know more about them, and it was a way of finding out
0:28:57 > 0:29:00more about them and writing about their lives.
0:29:01 > 0:29:05For a mainstream writer, this was a brave and unusual move.
0:29:10 > 0:29:14So, the Haymarket Theatre was the theatre that my grandma worked in.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18And she was devastated when they closed it down.
0:29:18 > 0:29:23The Great Celestial Cow is what brought us here,
0:29:23 > 0:29:26which is one of the plays that she wrote in 1984,
0:29:26 > 0:29:27and we want to bring it back.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31Sue's granddaughter Finley is running a workshop,
0:29:31 > 0:29:35uniting professional actors and members of the local community.
0:29:37 > 0:29:41The thing with my grandma is that everyone she met was interesting.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44And it wasn't that whole, "Hi, how are you?"
0:29:44 > 0:29:46She genuinely wanted to know about everyone,
0:29:46 > 0:29:49and she genuinely wanted to understand them and learn about them.
0:29:49 > 0:29:53That's what made her writing so real and so accurate,
0:29:53 > 0:29:56because it was observations of real people, but of how she saw them.
0:29:59 > 0:30:01Before writing a single word,
0:30:01 > 0:30:04Sue, the actors and director Carole approached women from
0:30:04 > 0:30:08the Asian community to come in and share their secret lives.
0:30:10 > 0:30:13I am 20 years old, Hindu.
0:30:13 > 0:30:19I am 5'6" tall, my complexion is good, my skin tone light.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22My teeth are perfect.
0:30:22 > 0:30:24I have two fillings, gold.
0:30:24 > 0:30:26I weigh nine stone when I am naked.
0:30:26 > 0:30:30My shoe size is 5½, my pelvis is wide.
0:30:30 > 0:30:32Naturally, I will have many sons.
0:30:32 > 0:30:35These are actual women who have told these stories to my grandma,
0:30:35 > 0:30:38that she wrote. Some of the stories were really moving and really
0:30:38 > 0:30:41difficult, and I think that's what spurred them on to do it more.
0:30:41 > 0:30:44I have a light, melodious singing voice. I dance gracefully,
0:30:44 > 0:30:46and I'm currently working in the gas offices,
0:30:46 > 0:30:49where I earn £95 a week before tax.
0:30:52 > 0:30:54Oh, and most important of all...
0:30:56 > 0:30:57..I am a virgin.
0:30:59 > 0:31:02And the actors contributed, too.
0:31:02 > 0:31:05Bhasker Patel appeared in the original production,
0:31:05 > 0:31:08and the stories he shared with Sue made it onto the stage.
0:31:12 > 0:31:15I'm going to England and you're staying here.
0:31:17 > 0:31:22'In the opening line, he talks to the cow. That was my life.'
0:31:22 > 0:31:24When I'm sitting on the toilet in Leicester...
0:31:26 > 0:31:29..you will be here, sitting in your own dirt.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36The play follows Sita, a mother of two from India,
0:31:36 > 0:31:40who finds that life in Leicester isn't quite what she hoped.
0:31:42 > 0:31:44Hey! Get your dirty, black hands off my fruit!
0:31:44 > 0:31:45People have got to eat that!
0:31:45 > 0:31:49They won't want it if they see you mauling it about, will they?
0:31:49 > 0:31:50She doesn't understand.
0:31:50 > 0:31:51She understands all right.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54They want to stick to their own shops and their own district,
0:31:54 > 0:31:57not come into town, stinking the bloody place out.
0:31:57 > 0:32:01Someone said to me halfway through, "You do know that that's your mum?"
0:32:01 > 0:32:03Go away!
0:32:03 > 0:32:05Go on, go away!
0:32:05 > 0:32:08What Sue had done, it's my mum's plight.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11I think she saw strength in it.
0:32:21 > 0:32:24She wanted to tell the world...
0:32:25 > 0:32:30..that this is what Asian women go through.
0:32:31 > 0:32:33She stuck up for people. That's what her work is.
0:32:33 > 0:32:36It's, "I'm standing up for something I believe in,
0:32:36 > 0:32:39"but I'm going to do it in the most graceful way possible."
0:32:39 > 0:32:42She never stopped fighting for what she believed in.
0:32:42 > 0:32:43And that was her way of doing it.
0:32:43 > 0:32:47MUSIC: Common As Muck by Ian Dury and the Blockheads
0:32:52 > 0:32:55# You're not Brigitte Bardot
0:32:55 > 0:32:57# I'm not Jack Palance
0:32:57 > 0:33:00# I'm not Shirley Temple by any circumstance
0:33:00 > 0:33:04# Or Fred Astaire... #
0:33:04 > 0:33:08The class structure as well, isn't it, in British society, appeals to you.
0:33:08 > 0:33:09I'm obsessed with it, yes.
0:33:09 > 0:33:11I think it's held us all down for too many years.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14Throughout all my work, it's there.
0:33:14 > 0:33:18And I'd like to see it break down, yeah.
0:33:18 > 0:33:20I'd like to live under a different system altogether.
0:33:20 > 0:33:22# We're as common as muck
0:33:24 > 0:33:27# Bonne chance, viel gluck, good luck
0:33:29 > 0:33:32# Where bold is beautiful we don't give a damn
0:33:36 > 0:33:38# Love a duck, we're as common as muck... #
0:33:41 > 0:33:46One of Sue's best-loved novels would be inspired by a family whose own
0:33:46 > 0:33:48secret lives had become a bit too public.
0:33:50 > 0:33:581992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.
0:33:58 > 0:34:02It has turned out to be an annus horribilis.
0:34:03 > 0:34:07Toe-sucking, Squidgygate, Diana's biography...
0:34:07 > 0:34:09and Windsor Castle up in flames.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13The Queen might have thought it couldn't get any worse.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16I think the whole institution now is so ridiculous.
0:34:16 > 0:34:21I mean, years ago, we made the monarch, they reigned,
0:34:21 > 0:34:24they did what we wanted them to do, and we then killed them.
0:34:24 > 0:34:26I honestly don't see the purpose they serve.
0:34:28 > 0:34:32The Queen And I was based on an idea Sue had been pondering for years...
0:34:34 > 0:34:37..back when she lived round the corner from one of Leicester's
0:34:37 > 0:34:40poorest estates, the Saff.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44When we were at school, she talked about,
0:34:44 > 0:34:48"Wouldn't it be funny if the Queen lived up the Saff?" and all of this.
0:34:48 > 0:34:50We just laughed about it.
0:34:50 > 0:34:52Ha! The Queen on a council estate!
0:34:52 > 0:34:55It would never happen. Blah, blah, blah. You know?
0:34:55 > 0:35:01Then this book came out and I could hear her, sort of, in the classroom
0:35:01 > 0:35:02with these ideas that she had.
0:35:09 > 0:35:11It's all about how the Queen copes
0:35:11 > 0:35:14with life on a council estate.
0:35:16 > 0:35:20When a republican party wins the general election,
0:35:20 > 0:35:24the monarchy's abolished and the Royals sent to live as commoners,
0:35:24 > 0:35:26in a street called Hellebore Close.
0:35:28 > 0:35:33"The street sign at the entrance to the close had lost five black metal
0:35:33 > 0:35:36"letters. Hell Close, it now said,
0:35:36 > 0:35:38"illuminated by the light of a flickering street lamp.
0:35:40 > 0:35:44"The Queen thought, 'Yes, it is hell, it must be,
0:35:44 > 0:35:47for I've never seen anything like it in the whole of my waking life.' "
0:35:54 > 0:35:58They meet the public when the public are wearing their best clothes,
0:35:58 > 0:36:01when the public are probably sweating with nervousness.
0:36:01 > 0:36:05They have absolutely no idea of how most people live.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11Combining a love of the absurd with often biting satire,
0:36:11 > 0:36:13Sue's timing was perfect.
0:36:14 > 0:36:18I think, in a way, Sue's book spoke for all of us, because we'd spent
0:36:18 > 0:36:21the year gobsmacked at what was going on in the Royal Family
0:36:21 > 0:36:25and really wondering if they were royal at all and why
0:36:25 > 0:36:28we should respect them when they were all behaving so terribly badly.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38Poor old Philip can't cope at all. You send him off to the loony bin, don't you?
0:36:39 > 0:36:43The thing about Philip is, he's very boring.
0:36:43 > 0:36:45So I kept him in bed.
0:36:45 > 0:36:47- I just didn't want to get him out of bed.- A good place.
0:36:49 > 0:36:51I have to tell you, Charles is wonderful.
0:36:51 > 0:36:53He grabs it with great gusto.
0:36:53 > 0:36:55He's in a shell suit with a ponytail.
0:36:59 > 0:37:01Yet Sue didn't resort to caricature.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03Her Royals are flesh and blood.
0:37:05 > 0:37:09Sue was a republican, but she was very sympathetic
0:37:09 > 0:37:13to the Royal Family and I think she felt very sorry for them.
0:37:13 > 0:37:15What a lousy break they've had!
0:37:18 > 0:37:20Let's try and make it better, make them real people.
0:37:24 > 0:37:28"What must it feel like to open one's mouth and scream?
0:37:28 > 0:37:31"The Queen stood over the washing-up bowl
0:37:31 > 0:37:34"and gave a tiny experimental scream.
0:37:34 > 0:37:38"To her ears, it sounded like a hinge needing oil.
0:37:38 > 0:37:40"She tried again.
0:37:40 > 0:37:42"Agh!
0:37:42 > 0:37:44"It was quite satisfactory.
0:37:44 > 0:37:48"And again... Agh!
0:37:48 > 0:37:52"Her throat opened wide and the Queen could feel the scream
0:37:52 > 0:37:55"travel up her lungs, overflow her windpipe,
0:37:55 > 0:37:58"and roar out of her mouth like a British lion.
0:37:58 > 0:38:01"Agh!
0:38:01 > 0:38:02"Agh!"
0:38:05 > 0:38:07I've published so many brilliant, funny women,
0:38:07 > 0:38:13who write such intricately brilliant and hard-to-do fiction
0:38:13 > 0:38:16and they will never win the Booker Prize,
0:38:16 > 0:38:19because being a woman is one thing and being funny is worse.
0:38:19 > 0:38:22It's seen as easy, and I think that's extraordinary,
0:38:22 > 0:38:24when it's so hard to do.
0:38:29 > 0:38:33In 1997, Sue's work would take a more serious turn.
0:38:38 > 0:38:41Ghost Children's subject was abortion.
0:38:43 > 0:38:44"Angela had wanted to shout at the woman.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47"I don't think you can properly understand how much I want to
0:38:47 > 0:38:49"get rid of this baby.
0:38:49 > 0:38:50"It is an alien inside me.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52"It has filled my belly and my head.
0:38:52 > 0:38:56"It has turned me into an animal with an animal's responses.
0:38:56 > 0:38:59"It is a loathsome parasite, feeding off me.
0:38:59 > 0:39:01"Would you have me welcome a tapeworm into the world?
0:39:01 > 0:39:04"I want all traces of it cleared out of my body.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08"I will excavate the thing by hook, or indeed by crook.
0:39:08 > 0:39:09"If the labour takes a year,
0:39:09 > 0:39:13"and the pain makes me scream like an animal in a trap, I don't care.
0:39:13 > 0:39:15"I will face it with fortitude.
0:39:15 > 0:39:19"And when the invader has gone, I will reconvene.
0:39:19 > 0:39:21"I will gather together the threads of my old life and
0:39:21 > 0:39:25"I will forgive myself and eventually forget."
0:39:43 > 0:39:49I think it was very important to Sue to write out something that had
0:39:49 > 0:39:55happened to her in a much earlier life, that she had always felt...
0:39:56 > 0:39:59..disturbed about.
0:39:59 > 0:40:05Not disturbed BY so much as disturbed that she hadn't really
0:40:05 > 0:40:09exorcised that and she hadn't really dealt with it in herself
0:40:09 > 0:40:12and what it had meant to her.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16And I think it was a very necessary book for her to write.
0:40:21 > 0:40:24In 2005, Sue relived another early trauma.
0:40:26 > 0:40:28This interview has never been broadcast.
0:40:30 > 0:40:33When I was eight, eight and a half,
0:40:33 > 0:40:39I have got a memory of being in a tree with two boys,
0:40:39 > 0:40:40one either side of me.
0:40:43 > 0:40:45When we witnessed...
0:40:46 > 0:40:47..a murderer...
0:40:50 > 0:40:52..pulling a girl that we knew...
0:40:54 > 0:40:56..through the woods...
0:40:56 > 0:41:00and up against the tree trunk.
0:41:00 > 0:41:04And of the three of us freezing.
0:41:04 > 0:41:05My memory is that...
0:41:07 > 0:41:08..he was dragging her by her throat.
0:41:10 > 0:41:11He strangled her.
0:41:13 > 0:41:15But we did nothing to help her.
0:41:16 > 0:41:20And then we eventually jumped down over her body...
0:41:22 > 0:41:27..and ran to tell a bloke called Mr Gibson,
0:41:27 > 0:41:30who kept a sweet shop,
0:41:30 > 0:41:31and he disbelieved us.
0:41:33 > 0:41:34He told us to get out.
0:41:37 > 0:41:40The murder of 12-year-old Janet Warner shocked the local community.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46Her killer was sentenced to death after the shortest trial on record.
0:41:50 > 0:41:52That same year, Sue's father died.
0:41:55 > 0:41:58My memory, I think possibly until this day,
0:41:58 > 0:42:01is of me at eight years old being an adult.
0:42:04 > 0:42:08Being a grown-up, coping in a grown-up way with...
0:42:09 > 0:42:12..things that little children cannot cope with,
0:42:12 > 0:42:14shouldn't have to cope with.
0:42:16 > 0:42:19It is astonishing how many writers
0:42:19 > 0:42:23have suffered similar things.
0:42:25 > 0:42:27It turns you in on yourself.
0:42:28 > 0:42:31You become very aware of atmosphere.
0:42:33 > 0:42:34You notice things.
0:42:36 > 0:42:42Over her career, Sue would write 16 books and more than a dozen plays,
0:42:42 > 0:42:46but it was Adrian Mole to whom she returned again and again.
0:42:46 > 0:42:51He would sort of recede for a few years and then she would say she'd
0:42:51 > 0:42:55start to hear his voice louder in her head again after a few years.
0:42:55 > 0:42:56It was like...
0:42:56 > 0:42:59It was as if he wouldn't really go away properly.
0:43:00 > 0:43:04We're right in The Cappuccino Years territory here.
0:43:04 > 0:43:06This is when I got involved.
0:43:08 > 0:43:11I can't tell you the excitement of playing Adrian Mole.
0:43:11 > 0:43:14You grow up thinking you're going to be James Bond and then you get to be
0:43:14 > 0:43:17Adrian Mole, but you can live with that.
0:43:17 > 0:43:19You can live with that, cos he's such a great character.
0:43:21 > 0:43:26Mole may have grown up, but some things didn't change.
0:43:26 > 0:43:28You're so beautiful!
0:43:29 > 0:43:31'Pandora's an MP.'
0:43:31 > 0:43:36I think she wanted to critique the smoothness of the Labour machine...
0:43:37 > 0:43:44..because Pandora is vain and self-involved and slick.
0:43:44 > 0:43:46Ciao!
0:43:46 > 0:43:49Words which could be applied to the New Labour...
0:43:50 > 0:43:52..gang.
0:43:52 > 0:43:54I didn't realise you had the Daily Telegraph on your side.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57Oh, grow up! Do you want the bloody Tories in or out?
0:43:57 > 0:43:59What about the little people you're always banging on about?
0:43:59 > 0:44:00Well, I'm talking to YOU, aren't I?
0:44:04 > 0:44:06- COLIN BROADWAY:- I think everybody was excited.
0:44:06 > 0:44:11The Conservatives had gone and we had this wonderful hope for the future.
0:44:13 > 0:44:14Didn't last long.
0:44:17 > 0:44:19I often write when I'm angry about something -
0:44:19 > 0:44:22something that needs saying.
0:44:22 > 0:44:24Like most of us, we're powerless, aren't we?
0:44:24 > 0:44:26But I do think writers have quite a bit of power,
0:44:26 > 0:44:27a little bit of influence.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30Not much - I wouldn't say we have that much.
0:44:30 > 0:44:32But I do think we have a slow influence.
0:44:36 > 0:44:38She was furious.
0:44:38 > 0:44:39There was no real change.
0:44:40 > 0:44:41This smiling guy who...
0:44:43 > 0:44:45..did nothing, offered nothing new.
0:44:47 > 0:44:49I mean, I'm a sort of modern man, if you like, you know?
0:44:49 > 0:44:52I'm part of the rock 'n' roll generation, the Beatles, colour TVs,
0:44:52 > 0:44:54and all the rest of it.
0:44:54 > 0:44:57"He shows a fear of differentiation and a marked preference for
0:44:57 > 0:44:59"the ill-defined, the androgynous.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02"When I asked him to name his favourite flower,
0:45:02 > 0:45:04"he replied, 'Spring and summer flowers.'
0:45:04 > 0:45:07"When I asked him if he had a favourite rock band, his answer was,
0:45:07 > 0:45:09" The bands that everyone likes.'
0:45:09 > 0:45:13"Asked to name a favourite book, he replied, 'The classics.'
0:45:13 > 0:45:16"He is pathologically unable to commit to an opinion
0:45:16 > 0:45:19"for fear of displeasing the questioner, in this case me.
0:45:19 > 0:45:21"I asked him about his childhood.
0:45:21 > 0:45:23"He said, 'I want to make it absolutely clear
0:45:23 > 0:45:26" 'that I had a hugely enjoyable childhood.'
0:45:26 > 0:45:28"At this point, he began to cry."
0:45:42 > 0:45:46For Sue, the process of writing was becoming harder.
0:45:48 > 0:45:51A diabetic for years, she was beginning to lose her sight.
0:45:54 > 0:45:57You can't underestimate what a devastating blow it is.
0:45:57 > 0:46:00And people would say, "You're so good about it,"
0:46:00 > 0:46:01but, inside, I was just...
0:46:03 > 0:46:05To me, not to be able to read, it's just...
0:46:05 > 0:46:08I still haven't actually come to terms with it yet.
0:46:08 > 0:46:09I still get...
0:46:11 > 0:46:13You know, I can't bear... I just can't bear it.
0:46:15 > 0:46:17When I auditioned for the part of Adrian,
0:46:17 > 0:46:20even then she couldn't really see me sitting across from me,
0:46:20 > 0:46:22so she had a big magnifying glass, like a reading magnifying glass,
0:46:22 > 0:46:24came right up to my face.
0:46:24 > 0:46:27She said, "Adrian can't be too good-looking."
0:46:27 > 0:46:29She scanned me all over.
0:46:29 > 0:46:32Obviously, I was ugly enough to play him.
0:46:38 > 0:46:40Once again, Sue expressed her feelings through Mole.
0:46:43 > 0:46:47When his best friend Nigel goes blind, Adrian is somewhat put out.
0:46:48 > 0:46:50"Nigel didn't even smile.
0:46:50 > 0:46:53"He seems to have lost his sense of humour along with his sight.
0:46:54 > 0:46:57"I got him out of the car and escorted him across the car park
0:46:57 > 0:47:00"and up the school assembly hall.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03"He kept dragging his feet and falling over his stick and
0:47:03 > 0:47:05"once he snapped, 'For Christ's sake, slow down!
0:47:05 > 0:47:08" 'You're dragging me along as if I'm a bag of rubbish.' "
0:47:13 > 0:47:18Nigel can say all those nasty things that blind people often want to say
0:47:18 > 0:47:20but can't because...
0:47:20 > 0:47:23you have to appear to be noble and accepting of your fate.
0:47:28 > 0:47:31Sue's health would continue to decline.
0:47:31 > 0:47:32Now in a wheelchair,
0:47:32 > 0:47:35she suffered from arthritis caused by her worsening diabetes.
0:47:37 > 0:47:39'You know, I've always been a bit of a lazy person,
0:47:39 > 0:47:42'so being pushed around the shops,
0:47:42 > 0:47:45'that's not the worst thing that can happen to you.
0:47:45 > 0:47:47'The blindness is the thing.
0:47:47 > 0:47:49'That's the thing that's very difficult to cope with.'
0:47:51 > 0:47:53Even when she could no longer see...
0:47:54 > 0:47:57..she insisted I did the observing for her.
0:47:57 > 0:47:59She needed to know what people were doing.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02"What's going on over there?" She could see something was happening
0:48:02 > 0:48:07over there but no idea what, so I'd have to do the observation for her.
0:48:07 > 0:48:08Go back.
0:48:08 > 0:48:11Sue did try and learn to type.
0:48:11 > 0:48:13I love that key - that's great.
0:48:15 > 0:48:17But her efforts to use technology were short-lived.
0:48:18 > 0:48:20Go back, you fool!
0:48:23 > 0:48:26Wow! What a word rate, eh?
0:48:26 > 0:48:29She would soon return to writing by hand.
0:48:29 > 0:48:30How many words in a book?
0:48:34 > 0:48:36At least 100,000.
0:48:36 > 0:48:42It was blood, sweat and tears at times, but she wanted to write.
0:48:42 > 0:48:43She always had something to say.
0:48:46 > 0:48:48Can't read some of this, can you?
0:48:48 > 0:48:50Yeah.
0:48:50 > 0:48:51"Dear Mr Brown,
0:48:51 > 0:48:54"Please allow me to congratulate you on being Prime Minister.
0:48:54 > 0:48:57"You join the ranks of other great one-eyed men.
0:48:57 > 0:49:01"Lord Nelson, Napoleon, George Melly and Cyclops, just to name a few."
0:49:01 > 0:49:04I remember that. I do remember that, yes, I do remember that.
0:49:04 > 0:49:06She couldn't see. She couldn't see when she wrote that.
0:49:06 > 0:49:08It's just really big letters.
0:49:10 > 0:49:12With the help of Colin and her family,
0:49:12 > 0:49:15Sue wrote half a dozen more books.
0:49:15 > 0:49:18She sometimes wouldn't start until three weeks before the deadline.
0:49:20 > 0:49:23My mad hours are midnight onwards.
0:49:23 > 0:49:26It takes me that long to get the courage to start to write because,
0:49:26 > 0:49:30you know, I've always found it a very difficult process.
0:49:30 > 0:49:34I have to kind of get myself worked up and about midnight I'm ready.
0:49:36 > 0:49:38So, this is Sue's study.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41This is where we used to work. And, er...
0:49:41 > 0:49:45this is the main desk. I would sit here and Sue would sit here.
0:49:45 > 0:49:47And so then she'd go like this...
0:49:47 > 0:49:49She'd close her eyes and then she'd start...
0:49:49 > 0:49:52She'd say something and I'd type it down,
0:49:52 > 0:49:55and we'd type a few sentences and then she'd say,
0:49:55 > 0:49:56"Read it back, read it back."
0:49:56 > 0:49:58So I'd read it back.
0:49:58 > 0:50:00And we'd change as we went.
0:50:00 > 0:50:03Actually, what is missing is there were endless little yellow
0:50:03 > 0:50:06Post-it Notes up here with notes. She'd have written them down.
0:50:06 > 0:50:08She'd have woken up in the night or come down in the morning,
0:50:08 > 0:50:11written a couple of lines and stuck them a Post-it Note, cos that was...
0:50:11 > 0:50:15And thought, "We'll put them in somewhere." I mean, it was quite a...
0:50:15 > 0:50:17Quite a haphazard process sometimes.
0:50:17 > 0:50:19But every single word of it was hers,
0:50:19 > 0:50:21and you changed a word at your peril.
0:50:22 > 0:50:24In 2007,
0:50:24 > 0:50:28Sue received a new lease of life when her son Sean donated a kidney.
0:50:32 > 0:50:36I always remember her saying, you know, "This poor kidney,
0:50:36 > 0:50:40"I bet it thinks it's died and gone to hell coming in my body," you know?
0:50:42 > 0:50:46She'd always smoke like a chimney and she liked a drink.
0:50:46 > 0:50:49She could make a joke of everything.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55In 2009, Adrian Mole was pushing 40.
0:50:56 > 0:50:58And now he had cancer.
0:50:59 > 0:51:04I know how Mole feels about the fact that he has also got a serious illness.
0:51:04 > 0:51:08I've made him have a far worse reaction than I had.
0:51:10 > 0:51:13"Friday 26th of October - treatment.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18"Saturday 27th of October - treatment.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23"Sunday 28th of October - treatment.
0:51:25 > 0:51:29"Monday 29th of October - treatment.
0:51:30 > 0:51:33"Tuesday 30th of October -
0:51:33 > 0:51:34"treatment.
0:51:36 > 0:51:38"Wednesday 31st of October -
0:51:38 > 0:51:40"Halloween."
0:51:41 > 0:51:44In a sense, he's my worst side.
0:51:44 > 0:51:47If people realised that I was so near to...
0:51:49 > 0:51:51To Mole, they would be less...
0:51:54 > 0:51:56Well, they wouldn't admire me.
0:51:59 > 0:52:02Sue always said that she didn't keep a diary herself...
0:52:03 > 0:52:06..but, in her archive, she left something unexpected.
0:52:09 > 0:52:10So, this...
0:52:13 > 0:52:16..is Sue's actual
0:52:16 > 0:52:17personal diary.
0:52:18 > 0:52:20"2.15, breast clinic.
0:52:20 > 0:52:24"Had examination and ultrasound and, finally, biopsy.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28"It is ridiculous. My hospital records are ludicrously large.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30"I feel ashamed when I see it.
0:52:33 > 0:52:34"9.50 - doctors, blood test.
0:52:34 > 0:52:36"Brain scan.
0:52:36 > 0:52:37"Kidney clinic.
0:52:37 > 0:52:38"Foot clinic.
0:52:42 > 0:52:46"I am unnaturally calm, still the eight-year-old,
0:52:46 > 0:52:49"and stoic with the frozen, forced smile.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53"People going around saying, 'Lovely sunny day!'
0:52:53 > 0:52:55"Can't the fools see the clouds in the distance?"
0:53:00 > 0:53:03It was horrible. And there were times when she was ill
0:53:03 > 0:53:05and she was struggling and...
0:53:06 > 0:53:10To go from someone who has been responsible, looking after you,
0:53:10 > 0:53:13and then being someone that you need to look after,
0:53:13 > 0:53:14it was the worst thing.
0:53:14 > 0:53:17She wasn't getting out as much and doing the things she wanted to do,
0:53:17 > 0:53:18but she still wanted to write,
0:53:18 > 0:53:20so she ended up finding a way to talk about...
0:53:22 > 0:53:24..doing a whole novel from one room.
0:53:26 > 0:53:28"She picked up the saucepan,
0:53:28 > 0:53:31"walked from the kitchen into the sitting room and threw the soup
0:53:31 > 0:53:33"all over her precious chair.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38"She then went upstairs, into her bedroom and,
0:53:38 > 0:53:42"without removing her clothes or her shoes,
0:53:42 > 0:53:44"got into bed and stayed there for a year."
0:53:46 > 0:53:48It's difficult to write.
0:53:48 > 0:53:50I find it very, very difficult.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53What, you still find it hard to write?
0:53:53 > 0:53:55Yeah, to make it look easy.
0:53:55 > 0:53:59The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year is a tragi-comic tale of someone
0:53:59 > 0:54:02who does exactly that.
0:54:02 > 0:54:05You said that you were going to write one more comic novel
0:54:05 > 0:54:06called A Lump In The Bed.
0:54:06 > 0:54:08That's right!
0:54:08 > 0:54:09Yeah. So, was that the germ of this?
0:54:09 > 0:54:11It was. It was.
0:54:11 > 0:54:15And I forgot to call it The Lump In The Bed.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20The lump in question is Eva, a mild-mannered housewife
0:54:20 > 0:54:24who finds an unusual way to take back control of her life.
0:54:26 > 0:54:27By doing nothing.
0:54:30 > 0:54:34"She would not be chopping vegetables and browning meat
0:54:34 > 0:54:35"for a casserole.
0:54:35 > 0:54:38"She would not be baking bread and cakes because Brian preferred
0:54:38 > 0:54:40"the home-made to the shop-bought.
0:54:41 > 0:54:45"She would not be cutting grass, weeding, planting and sweeping paths
0:54:45 > 0:54:47"or collecting leaves in the garden.
0:54:48 > 0:54:50"She would not be brushing her hair,
0:54:50 > 0:54:53"showering or hurriedly applying make-up.
0:54:54 > 0:54:57"Today, she would not be doing any of those things."
0:55:00 > 0:55:03People love it and it got great reviews and she loved that.
0:55:03 > 0:55:06She loved great reviews, and they were great for that book.
0:55:10 > 0:55:14Sue planned to write one final Adrian Mole,
0:55:14 > 0:55:16inspired by Coalition Britain.
0:55:17 > 0:55:19But then she had a major stroke.
0:55:21 > 0:55:24The very last time I saw her we were talking about the new Mole,
0:55:24 > 0:55:29and she knew she couldn't write it, I think.
0:55:29 > 0:55:33And she cried then, and that was the only time I saw her cry, ever.
0:55:38 > 0:55:42Sue's diary offers a glimpse of her final year.
0:55:45 > 0:55:48"Hospital, recovering from stroke."
0:55:48 > 0:55:50She really did go through the wringer.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56But, even now, in her last months,
0:55:56 > 0:55:59Sue's sense of humour remained intact.
0:56:00 > 0:56:04"My father is on the front page of the Leicester Mercury.
0:56:04 > 0:56:06"He has won crisp eater of the year.
0:56:07 > 0:56:11"The photograph shows him munching on a Grab Bag of Quavers.
0:56:14 > 0:56:19"I said, 'You are abusing my transplanted kidney.
0:56:20 > 0:56:25" 'Your daily intake of salt must exceed a drum of Saxa.' "
0:56:25 > 0:56:28That's... I mean, that's Adrian. That's Adrian's voice.
0:56:37 > 0:56:39I have written my own funeral plan.
0:56:41 > 0:56:45"Dear loved ones, keep me away from the undertaker's premises.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48"I'd like to stay at home in my book room.
0:56:48 > 0:56:52"There's a black table that'll take a coffin nicely.
0:56:52 > 0:56:54"Please make sure I'm dead.
0:56:54 > 0:56:58"Too many people regain consciousness in the mortuary
0:56:58 > 0:57:00"and wonder why they're wearing a long white frock.
0:57:00 > 0:57:03"I don't want to be one of them.
0:57:03 > 0:57:05"I'd like vases full of fresh flowers in the room.
0:57:07 > 0:57:09"There'll be no morbid chrysanthemums."
0:57:23 > 0:57:26I think she could have written another...
0:57:27 > 0:57:28..ten wonderful novels.
0:57:28 > 0:57:33She wasn't very old, and writers get better for many years.
0:57:35 > 0:57:36And just a...
0:57:38 > 0:57:40..warm and wonderful friend.
0:57:41 > 0:57:43She was just so special.
0:57:44 > 0:57:45She was just...
0:57:45 > 0:57:47And I think, for me, personally...
0:57:50 > 0:57:53..she just made my four years at school great.
0:57:56 > 0:57:58"Grieve for moments, then be happy.
0:57:59 > 0:58:01"Wear bright colours, laugh and sing.
0:58:04 > 0:58:08"Throw my ashes in the garden, give a party, have a fling.
0:58:08 > 0:58:13"Keep my photo on the mantel, keep my memory in your hearts.
0:58:13 > 0:58:17"I have gone on an adventure to exciting foreign parts."
0:58:21 > 0:58:23This is Sue's book Mr Bevan's Dream.
0:58:23 > 0:58:27I read a couple of passages from it at Sue's funeral.
0:58:27 > 0:58:30"I'm extremely proud of my background,
0:58:30 > 0:58:33"and the more I travel and read about history...
0:58:33 > 0:58:35"And the roots of what we call civilisation,
0:58:35 > 0:58:38"the prouder I become of this huge international class.
0:58:38 > 0:58:41"I know that they were the builders of the cathedrals,
0:58:41 > 0:58:42"the carvers of the furniture...
0:58:42 > 0:58:46"The seamstresses of the gorgeous clothes in the family portraits.
0:58:46 > 0:58:49"They grew the hothouse flowers, they wove the carpets,
0:58:49 > 0:58:53"bound the books in the libraries and gilded the ceilings.
0:58:53 > 0:58:56"They also built the roads, the railways, the bridges
0:58:56 > 0:58:58"and the viaducts and, what is more,
0:58:58 > 0:59:02"they were fully capable of designing such marvels.
0:59:02 > 0:59:06"No one class has a monopoly on vision and imagination.
0:59:06 > 0:59:09"The only thing the working classes lacked was capital."