02/05/2014 East Midlands Today

of the Leicester author Sue Townsend ` the woman who gave us Adrian Mole.

Her family chose to hold a public funeral service at De Montfort Hall

` in the heart of the city she loved. Sue was described as generous

and kind with a wicked sense of humour, as Geeta Pendse reports.

An iconic cultural venue befitting a woman who put Leicester on the

literary map. Sue Townsend's family, friends and the public attended the

funeral service. It was a nonreligious service. While cameras

were not present, audio was relayed to mourners outside. Extracts of her

work and tributes were read out. ?? YELLOW She was not scared of death,

but she was not ready to die. She loved life too much. She loved

Leicester and the overflowing home that she had made in a corner of it.

She loved trees, garden centres, flowers. She loved red lipstick,

handbags and shoes. The actor Stephen Mangan read an excerpt from

her book and talked about playing Adrian Mole. To find myself playing

him on telly. It was terrifying, and would have been a lot more

terrifying had it not been for Sue. She could see what a terrifying

prospect it was for me to play one of the most famous literary

characters. She looked after me. She was on set every day. She guided me

through the whole thing. What could have been frightening turned out to

be one of the best experiences of my life. Two of her former classmates

came to pay tribute. They spoke about the friendship of over 56 and

three`quarter years. A woman who was not a follower, who had a wicked

sense of humour. I will remember her because of her laughing. She felt

passionately about things like injustice and politics, but you

could not hold a conversation with her without that guffaw of laughter

coming out of her. Her coffin was played out to the music of Etta

James and taken to a private funeral. `` a private family

cremation. It captured her passion for life and her love for Leicester.

And for the written word. Goodbye. With your weekend on bank

holiday weather, here is an. Not looking too bad. Mostly dry,

some sunshine but a little frost. As we go through the night tonight, we

continue to see the cloud clearing giving us clear skies. Temperatures

drop away quite quickly. In rural sheltered spots, you are likely to

get frost. A chilly start tomorrow but bright and sunny. Sunshine

throughout the day. More cloud coming in the afternoon. On Sunday,

we are in for a cloudy start with patchy outbreaks of rain. But

high`pressure clings on so we sit `` we should see some sunshine in the

afternoon. Here is the outlook. the rest of the weekend. Now look at

the Outlook with Nick Miller. Neuer-macro don't worry, this is not

the repeat. It is live. This is the forecast you are more likely to see

in January than May, but this is a cold night for the time of year. We

have got some cloud coming into the West, stopping the temperature going

down too far. It may produce light rain later in the night, maybe a

rogue shower from patchy cloud in East Anglia. For most, dry, clear,

temperatures are on the way down and will end up lower than this in the

coldest rural spots by morning. -4 in rural Scotland in the coldest

moral spots in southern England, so gardeners take note, frost for some

of us are begins. What about the rest of the weekend? High pressure

is here as it begins. You may think, great, settled weather, it does

protect the south and east of the UK but Atlantique weather fronts coming

to the north and west, giving some rain at times. First, for tomorrow,

it is a fine start. Chilly, a lot of dry weather around from the word go.

Quite a bit of sunshine. The first Atlantique weather system is

bringing cloud and rain