Adrian Mole and me: RIP Sue Townsend

As I saw Sue Townsend and Adrian Mole trending on twitter this morning I was intrigued. I hoped that the trends would be news of a new Adrian Mole book but my heart told me that the news was not going to be good. My fears were confirmed and reports informed us that Sue passed away yesterday at the age of 68. Great sadness filled me at this news, this is not only the death of a wonderful author but for me the loss and the end of the road as well for a literary character who has meant so much to me over the years. I first discovered the secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 when I was nine years old. I remember finding the book randomly in my mums bedroom and starting to read it. I was hooked and spent that Easter weekend laying on my parents bed devouring the book whilst munching my way through Easter eggs. Looking back I was way too young to fully appreciate the adult humour of the character of Adrian and I remember just like Adrian wondering what "wanton" meant. Nonetheless, to a nine year old me Adrian was a funny teenage character, with his aspirations of being a poet, his love for mars bars and his obsession with Pandora Braithwaite. Maybe I related a lot to Adrian because just like him I spent a lot of my early life living in my head and my bedroom. After I read that first book there was no holding back on my love for Adrian Mole. I asked for the other two books and the video of the tv adaptation for my tenth birthday. My sister and I watched the video over and over again and knew the whole script by heart. As a child that didn't really fit in at school, having a literary hero provided me with a sense of comfort and solace. As I grew, Adrian grew too, sometimes it was frustrating being an Adrian Mole fan, he made some really bad decisions, but haven't we all? As I got older and real life got busier I needed the comfort of Adrian Mole less and less, but I knew he was always there if I needed him. The time when I really needed him came when I was twenty nine years old, one weekend I started getting panic attacks and the only thing that kept me calm was reading Adrian Mole: The Prostate Years. After that I put all of the Adrian Mole books on my kindle and from that point on I read bits of them over again whenever I felt anxious. Somehow reading about Adrian's antics could give me immense comfort and distraction from my problems. I would like to thank and pay tribute to Sue for giving me such an amazing literary character in Adrian Mole, and for keeping his story going for us fans all the way through her career. Tonight I will read a couple of Adrian's diary entries and say a quiet prayer for Sue.