Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Sue Lawley
Creator of the Adrian Mole series, charting the life of a teenage boy through his diaries.
Eight records
No particular reason for choosing that, apart from liking the philosophy. I like the philosophy of thinking. Well, a hundred years from today it'll all be the same.
My sister Barbara sings this at family parties, and it doesn't matter how rowdy the party is. Or what drunken arguments may be taking place. This brings everybody to complete silence.
This reminds me of poverty. It reminds me of baked potatoes in the oven. I'm being cold. Um when I left home I left all the home comforts behind me.
Benny Goodman and His Orchestra
This reminds me of a time when things were getting better, I'd got three part-time jobs, the children were okay at school. And I bought this uh LP at the Co op for a pound, and I'd put it on and I it cheered me up. I used to stomp around my living room with the curtains closed in the afternoon.
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 (first movement)Favourite
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Mullova, Seiji Ozawa
This is the music I play to myself, when I'm working through the night, I often work through the night. If I have a piece that needs intense concentration, like a screenplay or a film treatment. You need to concentrate. It's like playing a terrible game of chess with yourself. And um I play this in the background. I just adore it. I think it's exquisite.
Um I can't tell you the exact reason for this. But it I played this over and over again during a time when I was very, very sad and missed somebody and uh at the end of the time I was reconciled, but it reminds me of that very sad time.
This reminds me of a long car journey from southern Spain to the ferry in France. And my very patient husband let me play this over and over again until I was word perfect. And then he had to put up with me singing it.
And ever since I heard this record I've just adored it. And again, it reflects something I'm very fond of, which is my house, my home. I've always, always wanted to make a nest where people are comfortable.
The keepsakes
The book
Kingsley Amis
I think I'll go for a good laugh, a good cattle. King's Yame is a good thing. I'll go for Ki Lucky Jim, yeah.
The luxury
A swimming pool full of cold champagne
I would restrict myself to two glasses, but I would need to have something to get me through the night and get me through the mosquitoes.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Was Adrian Mole, in the beginning, a male version of you at thirteen and three quarters?
Well, I don't know where you found this out because I've only recently started to uh tell the truth about this. Yes, we we do have a lot in common. Certainly when I was Adrian Moll's age, thirteen and three quarters, I was very pretentious. I used to walk around with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy under my arm, with the spines showing. to a very indifferent public, um, to prove to the world that I could read and I like the Russians and so on.
Presenter asks
Why did you write Adrian as a boy rather than a girl?
To to keep a certain amount of distance. It's always more interesting, I think, if you uh distance yourself from your characters. And also boys are far more. Um I mean it's easier to laugh at a boy or a man because they have more to hide. They tend to hide their feelings. And the whole point about the diaries is that they're secret, they're not meant to be read. I suppose it i it's true, isn't it, that the the awkwardness of of a young boy going through puberty is is perhaps funny. I I mean Adrian constantly is preoccupied with the size of his penis or the dirty magazine under his mattress and so on. I mean it's just it's just a more comic, uh more fertile ground, isn't it?
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 1
Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
Speaker 1
The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1
And the presenter was Sue Lawley.
Presenter
My Castaway this week is a biographer. She's charted the life of one man from boyhood to maturity. She chose him because in many respects his life mirrors her own. Like her hero, she comes from a poor but not deprived background, and always nursed an ambition to be a writer.
Presenter
Unlike him, however, she has now achieved what she wanted, while he has yet to prove himself. He is Adrian Mole, my castaway is his creator, Sue Townsend.
Presenter
You and Adrian are very similar in so many ways, Sue. I mean, was he, in fact, in the beginning, a male version of you at thirteen and three quarters?
Sue Townsend
Bertie
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Presenter
Well, I don't know where you found this out because I've only recently started to uh tell the truth about this.
Presenter
Yes, we we do have a lot in common.
Presenter
Certainly when I was Adrian Moll's age, thirteen and three quarters, I was very pretentious. I used to walk around with
Presenter
Dostoevsky and Tolstoy under my arm, with the spines showing.
Presenter
to a very indifferent public, um, to prove to the world that I could read and I like the Russians and so on. Why did you write him a as a chap? Why didn't you do him as a girl, which is what you were?
Presenter
To to keep a certain amount of distance. It's always more interesting, I think, if you uh distance yourself from your characters.
Presenter
And also boys are far more.
Presenter
Um
Presenter
I mean it's easier to laugh at a boy or a man because they have more to hide. They tend to hide their feelings.
Presenter
And the whole point about the diaries is that they're secret, they're not meant to be read. I suppose it i it's true, isn't it, that the the awkwardness of of a young boy going through puberty is is perhaps funny. I I mean Adrian constantly is preoccupied with the size of his penis or the dirty magazine under his mattress and so on. I mean it's just it's just a more comic, uh more fertile ground, isn't it? Well, of course girls measure their breasts, they're very anxious about the size of their waist and in particular.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
What
Presenter
They have the tape measure around the tops of their thighs and they measure their ankles. But they don't have a desperate need to shave the whole time. Not that, but.
Presenter
I mean, we are preoccupied to the point of obsession with our bodies at that age, because we're measuring ourselves against the world. We have an awful lot to live up to, glossy mags and so on.
Presenter
Telling us to do this and do that, and we'll be beautiful and successful and get our man.
Presenter
And of course when I was growing up that was all we were expected to do.
Presenter
Get a nice little job in a cake shop and then get our man. That's that's what Adrian hopes for the girl he intends to marry, Pandora. Yes, he does, because um attitudes take hundreds of years to change.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Presenter
So he's not just intellectually pretentious, he's also a sexist pig. Yes, of course he is. Poor chap. I don't know why he's so popular.
Presenter
Well, I think a lot of people identify with
Presenter
Well now, how much do you relish the idea of escaping from everybody, including Adrian Moe, and going to a desert island? Does it appeal?
Presenter
No, because I know what the reality of a desert island is.
Presenter
I speak as somebody who is tormented with mosquitoes and insect bites. I'm actually allergic to them, very badly allergic.
Presenter
And I note it's like to have sand constantly in your undergarments.
Presenter
Very uncomfortable. I know the sea. People think the sea is going to be very attractive. They're going to take a dip in the sea. The sea is going to be full of creepy crawlers.
Presenter
And uh it's very salty.
Presenter
And it's going to be
Presenter
Extremely difficult to survive on a desert island. I've not romantic at all about it.
Speaker 1
I've
Presenter
Is music gonna make it any more bearable? Slightly more bearable, yes. What's the first record you'll put on your gramophone?
Presenter
Well
Presenter
The first record is A Hundred Years from Today and it's sung by Jack Teagarden.
Presenter
And
Presenter
There's no particular reason for choosing that, apart from liking the philosophy.
Presenter
I like the philosophy of thinking.
Presenter
Well, a hundred years from today it'll all be the same. I used to think this when I was a kid and I was always late for school. This is secondary school.
Presenter
and a favourite teacher used to tell me often I used to look into his angry eyes and think
Presenter
Well, this is nothing. Compared to infinity, this is nothing.
Speaker 3
Don't save your kisses, just pass them around.
Speaker 3
You'll find my reasoning is logically sound.
Speaker 3
Who's going to know that you pass them around?
Speaker 3
Under you come today.
Speaker 3
Why crave a penthouse that's fit for a queen?
Speaker 3
You're near heaven on mother's ring
Speaker 3
If you had millions, what would they all mean?
Speaker 3
A hundred years from today.
Speaker 3
Oh laugh and sing, make lovers in, be happy while you make.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Uh
Sue Townsend
My gloves are there.
Speaker 1
We have it.
Speaker 3
They're all at one.
Speaker 3
Beneath the sun
Speaker 3
Found to make you feel that way
Speaker 3
The moon is shining, and that's a good sign.
Speaker 3
Cling to me closer, and say you'll be mine.
Speaker 3
Remember, darling, we won't see a chimney.
Speaker 3
A hundred years from the age
Speaker 3
A hundred years from today.
Presenter
A Hundred Years from Today, sung by Jack Teagarden.
Presenter
So Sue Townsend, Adrian obviously has an awful lot in common with you. What about his background? Now East Midlands, yes, that's you, Leicester. Leicester? Yes. What about his parents? Now, his father is is a storage heater. Electric and storage heater salesman. What was your dad?
Speaker 3
That's you?
Sue Townsend
Electric.
Speaker 1
Mm, what we
Presenter
My dad is uh has been many things, uh postman, milkman, uh bus conductor.
Presenter
Um he's actually an expert on
Presenter
The RAF and aircraft.
Presenter
It's his private hobby.
Presenter
And my mum and he worked on the buses together and always went to work with a hardback book in their satchel. What in the money bag? Yeah. When did they find time to read that?
Presenter
Well, a lot of the routes were country routes, so they would take people to work and then go back and they'd have time to sit and read. So you were very much a reading family? Yes, they were members of a library and
Presenter
Uh there were books in the house. I mean they didn't collect books, unlike me. So this was this was Leicestershire in what the the fifties. You were born just a after the war, yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Sue Townsend
Yeah.
Presenter
What sort of books were you reading? What sort of essays were you churning out at school? I learned to read with the William books.
Presenter
I was eight before I could read. I didn't learn to read at school. It was quite late, actually. Very late. I had a very cruel teacher.
Sue Townsend
That's quite
Speaker 1
Late actually.
Presenter
And if you got a word wrong, she used to smack your legs very hard. And I was frightened of her, and so were lots of kids in the class. And um my brain froze when I was in her presence, and I was away from school with mumps, and my mother went to a rummage sale and bought me a pile of William books.
Presenter
And I was very curious about the illustrations and wanted to know what the words underneath said.
Presenter
and she started to teach me very, very quickly I
Presenter
picked up on the words and miraculously I mean it is a miracle learning to read.
Presenter
I could read. From then on, I don't think I've ever spent a day without reading. I suppose there are shades of William in Adrian Moll, except that it's it's the opposite, really, isn't it? William is the rebel, is the is the truant, whereas Adrian Moll is is actually trying to restore some kind of order into life. Yes, um actually Adrian is the parent and his parents are the children, whereas William is very much the the boy, the child, and Mr and Mrs. Brown are very much the parents.
Presenter
William's physically brave, uh Adrian is not. William hasn't got an intellectual thought in his head.
Presenter
William wouldn't lie awake at night wondering why we're here and what's the nature of existence and is there a God. Whereas Adrian frets himself to a frazzle. While his parents behave really very badly. Yes, they do behave quite badly. But I've got a bee in my bonnet about parents and children. Often parents do behave extremely badly, but they expect their children to um behave better than they do themselves. I mean there's such hypocrisy in that. So Adrian's parents adultery or um sort of general malingering or
Presenter
So many terrorism
Presenter
That he just accepts all that as that that's what parents do, I suppose. Yes, I think he exaggerates his parents' misbehaviour actually because I mean they're not they're not so terrible, they're not cruel.
Presenter
They don't actually neglect him. There always is food in the house. It may not be
Presenter
The best nutritious food, but there's always a boil-in-the-bag cod or and butter sauce thing in the freezer. Shall we have record number two?
Presenter
It's She Moo Through the Fair.
Presenter
Uh and it's sung by Kenneth McKellar.
Presenter
Um my sister.
Presenter
Barbara sings this at family parties, and it doesn't matter how rowdy the party is.
Presenter
Or what drunken arguments may be taking place. This brings everybody.
Presenter
To complete silence. She sings it so beautifully. I only wish she'd recorded it.
Sue Townsend
My young love said to me, My mother won't mine.
Sue Townsend
And my father won't slight you for your lack of kind.
Sue Townsend
Then she st away from me And this she did say
Sue Townsend
It will not be long loved.
Sue Townsend
Till our wedding day
Sue Townsend
She stepped away from me, And she moved through the fair.
Sue Townsend
Unfondery I watched her move here and move there
Sue Townsend
And then the she went homeward With one start away
Sue Townsend
As the swan in the evening
Sue Townsend
Moose o
Presenter
She moved through the fair, sung by Kenneth McKellar. So let's get back to talking about you as a young girl, Sue. Were you a very serious minded child then, if you were a reader and a secret writer? Or could you make people laugh too?
Presenter
I think I was a very serious child. I I did take things very seriously. But I had a marvellous playing life.
Presenter
I used to roam the countryside with a big gang of children, boys and girls, and we had the great fortune to be able to play on a
Presenter
deserted um
Presenter
in a deserted manor house in their grounds.
Presenter
They've built a borstel on the grounds now, so it's all gone.
Presenter
But um
Presenter
No, I did
Presenter
think in sentences. I did think.
Presenter
a form of words which I I recognise wasn't shared by
Presenter
the other children I played with.
Presenter
And occasionally I used to say things to them and they used to laugh and so I learned to keep my mouth shut. So you knew you you know, you had some good one liners in you anyway. Well, yes. I was okay with the jokes and the laughs, but the more serious thoughts I s I I learned to keep to myself. But did you make them laugh? Were you afraid of the law? Oh, I used to. Yes, at school I used to charge threepence.
Speaker 1
Oh, I used to I
Presenter
Um it was terrible. And I used to mimic the teachers and make up all sorts of things about the teachers and have them in hysterics. When did the real secret writing begin? When were you actually putting things on paper and then hiding it away? After I left school. I left school very early.
Presenter
I just missed writing. I just carried on.
Presenter
But uh I knew it was no good. And what sort of things were you writing? Oh, miserable um
Speaker 1
Oh.
Presenter
The usual sort of adolescent stuff that they women's own love stories. Oh, no, no, no, far more angstridden than that. No, it was all because at the same time I was reading the Russians, you see.
Speaker 1
But women don't love
Speaker 1
I
Presenter
I stumbled as I had no reading plan, I had no guidance.
Presenter
I read a book about the Russian Revolution and became fascinated by the country and the culture.
Presenter
the music and then the writing.
Presenter
And so I stumbled on to Dostoevsky, but I did not know how to pronounce his name.
Presenter
So I went up to a a bohemian looking man in a cafe.
Presenter
And said, Do you know how to pronounce this? Because I wanted to.
Presenter
ask for more Dostoevsky novels in the library, but I didn't know how to pronounce it.
Presenter
And this man very kindly told me how to pronounce him. And he became a good friend actually. And he then recommended other books that I should read.
Presenter
And but in the meantime you were composing your own versions of War and Peace, were you?
Presenter
Yes. And where did you hide them?
Speaker 1
And where did you
Presenter
Everywhere. Everywhere around the house. But you really didn't want anybody to see them. I would have just died if anybody had read them. And I still would. I've still got them and they're
Presenter
And they are hidden away. Are they really awful? They're terrible. Yes, yes, they are terrible. Occasionally there's a sentence that I'm quite proud of, but that m might be out of a story which is three thousand five hundred words long.
Presenter
Next record.
Presenter
Um my next record is Bessie Smith singing Aggravating Papa.
Presenter
And this reminds me of poverty. It reminds me of baked potatoes in the oven.
Presenter
I'm being cold.
Presenter
Um when I left home I left all the home comforts behind me.
Presenter
I lived in um
Presenter
A little flat.
Presenter
And it was winter, and I had this record.
Presenter
I think I had one more record. I played this over and over and over again and I just loved Bessie Smith's voice.
Sue Townsend
I know a brother.
Sue Townsend
They call in purpose
Sue Townsend
He lives in Bar
Sue Townsend
He had a friend with a gal named Mandy Frank. He plainly seen that she was aggravating that she shouted out to him. Beggar waiting, Papa, don't you try to too time me?
Sue Townsend
I settled too timing.
Sue Townsend
Hangle waiting for free me cut or let me be
Presenter
Bessie Smith singing Aggravatin Papa
Presenter
You got married very young, didn't you, Susan? To get you out of this cold bedsites.
Sue Townsend
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Sue Townsend
Yes, you
Presenter
You were eighteen?
Presenter
Yes, I'd been eighteen and two weeks, I think, when I got married. Have have you spent your life working out your age to the exact number of daughters?
Presenter
Yes, I've just realized I do this, don't I? What are you now? I think you're very similar to me, forty-five and three. Forty five and three quarters. Three quarters, yeah.
Speaker 1
Uh
Sue Townsend
What?
Sue Townsend
Forty five and three quarters. Uh
Presenter
So at eighteen you got married, you had
Presenter
Three children very quickly, didn't you? Yes, I did.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Presenter
And then the marriage didn't last? No, sadly it didn't. You were struggling, rather, were you?
Presenter
Yes, it's always difficult anyway if you have three children under five. Um
Presenter
Yes, but I didn't blame him for going.
Presenter
Ah, he had a terrible job.
Presenter
cycled to work, winter, through the snow, the rain.
Presenter
And it was very difficult, and so I don't blame him.
Presenter
But there you were with three small children, and then you decided to go into community work. Yes, I started.
Presenter
I took the usual route of actually going to a playgroup and helping out there, although it was bedlam.
Presenter
And uh one of the workers said that
Presenter
He thought I'd be quite good as a youth worker.
Presenter
And, um
Presenter
I was desperate for money.
Presenter
And I actually did the training and worked for many, many years in a youth club in the evenings when the children were in bed.
Speaker 1
And the ch
Presenter
When was the first time that you actually submitted something then formally to any kind of publisher?
Presenter
I never ever did that.
Presenter
I um rejected myself for twenty years, and it was only my second husband who suggested that I write I join a writers' group.
Presenter
I confessed to him one night that I was a writer. What do you mean when you say you rejected yourself?
Presenter
Well, I I um
Presenter
It never actually crossed my mind to send any of my stuff away. I was still waiting to be
Presenter
a good writer. And to a certain extent I'm still waiting now. I mean I still
Presenter
Th that's what I hope for myself. That's how you know. So you you didn't think it worthy of publication? Oh no, I didn't, no. Even though you were an avid reader and you must have read a lot worse. No, be because it it's because I was an avid reader. I knew what
Speaker 1
Uh
Sue Townsend
So you
Speaker 3
Uh
Sue Townsend
Uh
Speaker 1
Uh
Presenter
A great writing moi. So who were you measuring yourself against?
Presenter
Dostoevsky.
Presenter
I mean unchecked.
Presenter
And um Kingsley Amis, who is a comic genius.
Presenter
Record number four.
Presenter
This is Stompin at the Savoy, played by Benny Goodman and his orchestra.
Presenter
And
Presenter
This reminds me of
Presenter
A time when things were getting better, I'd got three part-time jobs, the children were okay at school.
Presenter
And I bought this uh L P at the Co op for a pound, and I'd put it on and I it cheered me up. I used to stomp around my living room with the curtains closed in the afternoon.
Sue Townsend
Uh
Presenter
Stompin' at the Savoy, played by Benny Goodman and his orchestra. It was in fact the B B C, wasn't it, who first spotted Adrian Mole in nineteen eighty. Yes, it was John Tiedman, I mean, who i i in fact is uh features in the mole books, but is a real
Presenter
Person. In fact, he's head of B B C Drama now. He's done well, that boy.
Presenter
Quite well, yeah. So he you sent you sent a bit of Adrian to him and he said, I like this.
Sue Townsend
Oh, yeah.
Presenter
I didn't. Um an actor did.
Presenter
Uh the actor was looking for an audition piece because he was auditioning for Hook Finn in a pantomime or something.
Presenter
And he asked me if I'd got anything.
Presenter
And I remembered Mo.
Presenter
Um I'd written it years before and it was in one of my big cardboard boxes, but I rooted it out and it was handwritten and scruffy. In fact it's the sort of same form I write today. And he got it typed up.
Presenter
Uh, I don't think he got the job as Hook Finn, but I think he did like it very much. He laughed himself stupid at the bar, I remember. And then he sent it off to John Tiedman, who laughed himself stupid.
Presenter
And then they
Presenter
Actually put it on as a thirty minute theatre.
Presenter
And eventually he was on on the morning story as well. Yes, he was on as quarter to nine. And um so I have a um reason to thank Radio Four.
Presenter
So subsequently he was he was published in book form. That was nineteen eighty and he hasn't really, Adrian Moell, stopped selling since, has he? Have you any idea how many millions of books he's sold in the last eleven years? It's about seven million books, the two books.
Speaker 1
Really?
Presenter
How many languages?
Presenter
Twenty seven.
Presenter
It's interesting he translates, isn't it?
Presenter
I I can't explain this.
Presenter
I just can't.
Presenter
Oh I
Presenter
I've I've seen d people of all sort of nationalities reading him. All with straight faces, I might say.
Presenter
Um he does particularly well in the Iron Curtain Country oh, we can't call them that any more, the Draylon curtain countries or whatever they are, um uh um in the East and Bloc. And he does extremely well in um
Presenter
Holland.
Presenter
In the Netherlands. What have you been able to have? I don't necessarily mean strictly materially, but what has it given you that you wouldn't otherwise have had?
Speaker 1
Okay, but what
Presenter
Um, something I value more than anything else, which is my independence and my freedom.
Presenter
I've always been a terrible employee.
Presenter
I cannot bear people telling me what to do, especially if I don't think what they're asking is fair.
Presenter
And I've I've seen some terrible bosses, and you wonder how they get there.
Presenter
You know, how did they get there?
Presenter
Next piece of music. This is the music I play.
Presenter
To myself, when I'm working through the night, I often work through the night.
Presenter
If I have a piece that needs intense concentration, like a screenplay or a
Presenter
A film treatment.
Presenter
You need to concentrate. It's like playing a terrible game of chess with yourself. And um I play this in the background. I just adore it. I think it's exquisite. And it's Tchaikovsky. It's Russian. So it's romantic.
Sue Townsend
Um
Presenter
Part of the first movement of Tchaikovsky's violin concerto in D Op. thirty five, played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with Victoria Muleva, conducted by Seiji Ozawa.
Presenter
You've won fame, Sue Townsend, as a light writer with Adrian Mole, and you've written funny plays as well. But you've written more serious plays and a novel as well, haven't you, which was quite successful, Rebuilding Coventry.
Presenter
Tell me what that's about, the novel.
Presenter
It's about a woman who
Presenter
Kills a man with an action man doll.
Presenter
She sees him bullying his wife.
Presenter
And she's watched this many times. Their houses are opposite.
Presenter
And sometimes when they don't draw the curtains, she can see what's happening. It's like Madison Square Garden lit up.
Presenter
And she's stood this for two years, but she cracks, and her adrenaline sends her over the road.
Presenter
She rushes in. She picks up the first thing to hand, which happens to be an Action Man doll.
Presenter
And they have very hard little heads, those dolls.
Presenter
And she hits him on the back of the head and he drops down dead.
Presenter
And then she panics and she runs away to London.
Presenter
Without her handbag.
Presenter
Which is very significant. I'd die without mine. Now, I wonder where all that comes from. Have you ever wanted to kill anybody?
Presenter
Often, yes. I'm an interventionist. I mean, I see people bullying small children and smacking them round the head.
Presenter
and or dragging them along the street.
Presenter
And my children absolutely die because I actually cannot keep my nose out. I have to say something.
Presenter
And um the same thing, you know, I I've seen people beating their women up in the street and intervene.
Presenter
And I've seen people lying.
Presenter
on the pavement having a fit with people stepping over them and
Presenter
I'm not I'm not making myself sound like the Good Samaritan, but I just there's just something I can't not interfere. And so this is wishful thinking. Do you have a a a single burning literary ambition? I mean what what kind of work would you like to be remembered for? I suppose in the knowledge that you're never going to escape the mole are you? No, I'd be I'd be quite happy to be remembered for mole.
Speaker 1
No.
Presenter
Um
Presenter
I just want to get better as a writer. I it's a terrible thing to say you have no professional ambition. But I've actually
Presenter
Actually, done most of the things I've wanted to do. I've had plays on the royal court.
Presenter
You know, I've written articles and
Presenter
screenplays that are going to be made.
Presenter
I've done more than I ever, ever dreamed of doing.
Presenter
So
Presenter
All I can say is that I want to get better.
Presenter
Record number six.
Presenter
This is Roberta Flack singing Until It's Time For You to Go.
Presenter
Um I can't tell you the exact
Presenter
reason for this. But it I played this over and over again during a time when I was very, very sad and missed somebody and uh at the end of the time I was reconciled, but it reminds me of that very sad time.
Sue Townsend
You're not a dreamer.
Sue Townsend
You're not an angel, you're command.
Sue Townsend
I'm not a queen, I'm a woman.
Sue Townsend
Take my hand.
Sue Townsend
We'll make a space in the lives that we've planned.
Sue Townsend
And here you'll stay.
Sue Townsend
Until it's time
Sue Townsend
For you to go
Sue Townsend
Yes, we're different. We're worlds apart We're not the same
Sue Townsend
You laughed and joked at the start
Sue Townsend
Like in a game.
Sue Townsend
You could have stayed
Sue Townsend
Outside of my heart, but if you came
Sue Townsend
And here you'll stay.
Presenter
Roberta Flack singing Until It's Time For You to Go. Actually all your music is really quite sentimental, isn't it?
Presenter
Well, I'm amazed at myself, because there's no opera on this list, there's no Mozart.
Presenter
There's no rock and roll, there's no chuck berry, there's no office.
Presenter
No Jim Vincent.
Presenter
I started out with them all, and they've been discarded on the way.
Presenter
It's an extraordinary process, this.
Presenter
But it's it's all quite downbeat music, it's all quite sad, not just sentimental. I mean, is is there a a a black side to the humorous Su Towns in?
Speaker 1
Sentimental.
Presenter
Oh, gosh, yes.
Presenter
I mean, I've described myself as a cheerful manic depressive, and I think that's not a bad description.
Presenter
I think that encapsulates me quite well. And and would that uh manic depression get the better of you, do you think, on a desert island? Or have you battled against the odds enough to know how to survive? No, I would be too busy.
Sue Townsend
Yeah.
Speaker 1
No.
Presenter
I think, um
Presenter
I think a a very cheap cure if you can't afford an analyst or
Presenter
don't want to get hooked on antidepressants is to
Presenter
Keep active, not to sit and moon out of the window. It's to do something, to keep on your feet until you drop with exhaustion into your bed. And obviously your children have been a very central part of your life. I mean you've had to keep going, you've got four. Oh, you have to keep going, that's what children may um yes. And you're now forty-five and three quarters and you're a grandmother.
Speaker 1
Oh, you have to keep going, that's what
Presenter
Yes, I am. That is
Presenter
A wonderful experience.
Presenter
to see the next generation. They're now both the granddaughters are now both staggering around.
Presenter
And um I have to be careful not to bore people to death, you know.
Presenter
Um so I perhaps will not say any more about them, but they are both beautiful and um clever, of course. Next piece of music. This reminds me of a long car journey from southern Spain to the ferry in France.
Presenter
And my very patient husband let me play this over and over again until I was word perfect.
Presenter
And then he had to put up with me singing it.
Sue Townsend
Every time we say goodbye, I die a little
Sue Townsend
Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little
Sue Townsend
Why the gods above me?
Sue Townsend
Who must be in the north?
Sue Townsend
Think so little of me
Sue Townsend
They allow you
Sue Townsend
And you're near there's such a n
Sue Townsend
I've screamed about it.
Sue Townsend
I can hear a lock somewhere Waiting to sing about it
Sue Townsend
There is no love song finer
Sue Townsend
But how strange the change
Sue Townsend
From Major to Minor.
Sue Townsend
Every time we say
Presenter
Right.
Presenter
Simply read, singing Every Time We Say Goodbye. Uh your Adrian is now about twenty four years old as we speak, isn't he? And he's working at the Department of the Environment. What does he do there?
Speaker 1
We speak.
Presenter
He's in charge of.
Presenter
The Newt Department. He has to project newt berths for the British Isles.
Presenter
Somebody has to do it and Adrian um actually loathes newts, but it's a job. And is he still potty about Pandora Braithwaite? Yes, he'll he'll go to his grave potty about Pandora. Has he managed to seduce her yet?
Presenter
No.
Presenter
Because Pandora's uh decided to be celibate.
Presenter
until she's thirty six and then she will have one child, a girl, and call her Liberty. But is Adrian gonna be the father? This is what we need to know. Well, I don't know that. I doubt it very much indeed. I don't think he's got the brain power.
Speaker 1
Well
Presenter
Is there more Adrian Mole to come? I mean, is is that it now? You've got him to the DOE and you've got him still suffering and lovelorn over Pandora. Is there more?
Presenter
Yes, in nineteen ninety three there will be two years' worth of the mole diaries.
Presenter
As of now, so you're writing those now? Yes, I've started well, I've started to collect the the the newspapers and the various notes and uh artefacts. Because he reflects topical events, obviously, isn't it? It's absolutely essential, yes. I think that that maintains the interest. It has to be about here and now.
Speaker 1
It's absolutely sad.
Speaker 1
Okay.
Presenter
But isn't it inevitable that that the comedy that was turns to tragedy in a sense? That that that what was funny in a in a pompous, pimply teenager is perhaps a bit pathetic in a twenty-six-year-old man, that that actually Adrian Mo becomes a bit of a buffoon, really. He always was a twerp. Then he becomes a twenty-six-year-old buffoon.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Presenter
Yes, I think it is it is tragic. I mean the most tragic thing of all is that Mole thinks he's a genius.
Presenter
And he thinks he's uh a misunderstood genius and that the pu the world of publishing has not yet recognized this wonderful talent he has for writing. In fact, his um epic poem, The Tadpole, uh has not been published.
Presenter
and his novel Lo the Flat Hills of My Homeland.
Presenter
um which is an experimental novel, lacking vowels.
Presenter
Has yet to be published. So there's a different kind of humour. But I wonder if you can go on writing it with conviction, because as we said at the beginning, he was you, you were him, but you have now been discovered, you have now been recognised, you are recognised as a serious writer. Can you go on writing with conviction about somebody who never will be? Well, I mean, I am still have these ridiculous faults that I do share with Mole still. I mean, I'm capable of pretension, I'm capable of self-deception still.
Presenter
Last piece of music.
Presenter
This is A House Is Not a Home and it's sung by Brooke Benton.
Presenter
And ever since I heard this record I've just adored it. And again, it reflects something I'm
Presenter
very fond of, which is my house, my home. I've always, always wanted to make a nest where people are comfortable, um, whether it was in a a den as a child.
Presenter
Or um council house, a prefab.
Presenter
or in the very nice house we have now.
Sue Townsend
A cheer is still a cheer
Sue Townsend
Even when there's no one sitting there.
Sue Townsend
But a chair is not a house and a house is not a home when there's no one there.
Sue Townsend
To hold you tight and no one there you can kiss goodnight
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Sue Townsend
A room is still a room.
Sue Townsend
Even when there's nothing there but gloom
Sue Townsend
A room is not a house and a house is not a home when the two of us are far apart and one of us has a thrill.
Presenter
Brookbenton, and a house is not a home. Now, if you could only take one record, Sue.
Presenter
I'd take the Tchaikovsky.
Presenter
And a book. You've got the complete works of Shakespeare, and you've got the Bible waiting.
Presenter
I'm sitting here and I'm still divided between Dostoevsky's The House of the Dead and Lucky Jim.
Presenter
There is a little difference, I think.
Speaker 1
It's a little d
Presenter
In view of the um
Presenter
A sentimental, perhaps morbid, record choice. I think I'll go for
Presenter
A good laugh, a good cattle. King's Yame is a good thing. I'll go for Ki Lucky Jim, yeah.
Speaker 1
King's aim is not.
Presenter
And your luxury? My luxury, I think, would be
Presenter
A swimming pool full of champagne, cold champagne.
Presenter
So you're gonna drown drunk? No, it'd be fresh every no, it'd be fresh every day. I mean I'm re I'm going for real luxury.
Speaker 1
No, it's fresh.
Presenter
So you drink as you swim? No, I would restrict myself to two glasses, but I would need to have something to get me through the night and get me through the mosquitoes. I have to say, I can imagine nothing worse than swimming in champagne. But if that's what you want, that is what you shall have. Sue Tanzan, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much. I've enjoyed it.
Presenter asks
How much do you relish the idea of escaping from everybody, including Adrian Mole, and going to a desert island? Does it appeal?
No, because I know what the reality of a desert island is. I speak as somebody who is tormented with mosquitoes and insect bites. I'm actually allergic to them, very badly allergic. And I note it's like to have sand constantly in your undergarments. Very uncomfortable. I know the sea. People think the sea is going to be very attractive. They're going to take a dip in the sea. The sea is going to be full of creepy crawlers. And uh it's very salty. And it's going to be Extremely difficult to survive on a desert island. I've not romantic at all about it.
Presenter asks
Were you a very serious minded child, or could you make people laugh too?
I think I was a very serious child. I I did take things very seriously. But I had a marvellous playing life. I used to roam the countryside with a big gang of children, boys and girls, and we had the great fortune to be able to play on a deserted um in a deserted manor house in their grounds. They've built a borstel on the grounds now, so it's all gone. But um No, I did think in sentences. I did think. a form of words which I I recognise wasn't shared by the other children I played with. And occasionally I used to say things to them and they used to laugh and so I learned to keep my mouth shut.
Presenter asks
When was the first time that you actually submitted something formally to any kind of publisher?
I never ever did that. I um rejected myself for twenty years, and it was only my second husband who suggested that I write I join a writers' group. I confessed to him one night that I was a writer.
Presenter asks
Do you have a single burning literary ambition? What kind of work would you like to be remembered for?
I suppose in the knowledge that you're never going to escape the mole are you? No, I'd be I'd be quite happy to be remembered for mole. Um I just want to get better as a writer. I it's a terrible thing to say you have no professional ambition. But I've actually Actually, done most of the things I've wanted to do. I've had plays on the royal court. You know, I've written articles and screenplays that are going to be made. I've done more than I ever, ever dreamed of doing. So All I can say is that I want to get better.
“To to keep a certain amount of distance. It's always more interesting, I think, if you uh distance yourself from your characters. And also boys are far more. Um I mean it's easier to laugh at a boy or a man because they have more to hide. They tend to hide their feelings.”
“I learned to read with the William books. I was eight before I could read. I didn't learn to read at school. It was quite late, actually. Very late. I had a very cruel teacher. And if you got a word wrong, she used to smack your legs very hard. And I was frightened of her, and so were lots of kids in the class. And um my brain froze when I was in her presence, and I was away from school with mumps, and my mother went to a rummage sale and bought me a pile of William books. And I was very curious about the illustrations and wanted to know what the words underneath said. And she started to teach me very, very quickly I picked up on the words and miraculously I mean it is a miracle learning to read. I could read. From then on, I don't think I've ever spent a day without reading.”
“Well, I I um It never actually crossed my mind to send any of my stuff away. I was still waiting to be a good writer. And to a certain extent I'm still waiting now. I mean I still Th that's what I hope for myself.”
“Um, something I value more than anything else, which is my independence and my freedom. I've always been a terrible employee. I cannot bear people telling me what to do, especially if I don't think what they're asking is fair.”
“Oh, gosh, yes. I mean, I've described myself as a cheerful manic depressive, and I think that's not a bad description. I think that encapsulates me quite well.”
“Yes, I think it is it is tragic. I mean the most tragic thing of all is that Mole thinks he's a genius. And he thinks he's uh a misunderstood genius and that the pu the world of publishing has not yet recognized this wonderful talent he has for writing. In fact, his um epic poem, The Tadpole, uh has not been published. And his novel Lo the Flat Hills of My Homeland. um which is an experimental novel, lacking vowels. Has yet to be published.”