by Sue Townsend
Vince Ludlow doesn't seem to do any work, though his family are always well rigged-out in designer clothes. Peggy continues to invade my thoughts. Today she was wearing a snakeskin sleeveless shift dress. It was the first time I'd seen her upper arms. She has several tattoos, the most recent being a depiction of Jeremy Paxman's head. When I said that I, too, was a fan of Newsnight, she said that she had asked for Jeremy Clarkson and was suing the tattooist.
Wednesday, March 8, Ash Wednesday
My mother invited me and the boys to a No Smoking Day party to celebrate her proposed new status as a non-smoker. We arrived slightly late, at 7.30. She answered the door looking irritable: "You've missed the ashtray-smashing ceremony." At 7.45, she smoked her last cigarette in the garden, surrounded by family and friends. Tears ran down her tobacco-ravaged face. Ivan then ceremoniously applied a nicotine patch to her upper-arm. When I strolled back into the house, it didn't seem the same without its perpetual pall of smoke. No reply yet from Patience regarding the tracksuit trousers.
Thursday, March 9
A telephone call from the school secretary to tell me that Roger Patience can now be reached only on the following e-mail address: patience.com@sailschool
Friday, March 10
I called on my mother unexpectedly this afternoon: she was smoking a cigarette and both wearing nicotine and chewing it. She begged me not to tell Ivan.
Saturday, March 11
I went to see Pandora at the ceremony to close down the community centre on this estate. She told me that her dinner guests were Ken Dodd and Frank Skinner — a grim night, then.
Tracksuit trouble continues
Sunday, March 12, 2000, Arthur Askey Way
The tracksuit row drags on. The headmaster is refusing to budge. I ordered Glenn to don his tracksuit before the cross-country run, and to return home if he was ordered by his PE teacher to take it off. Glenn was home by 11.15 with the following note.
Dear Mr Mole,
As I have stated ad nauseam, Glenn is not allowed to wear a tracksuit during cross-country runs. It was the wearing of shorts and vests in sub-zero temperatures that put the backbone into our young men and enabled our great country to win two world wars and several rowing medals at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.
Yours, R Patience (Chief Executive), Neil Armstrong Community College
I rang Pandora at the Commons and was put through to a call centre where a recorded voice told me to press the star button if I was a constituent, or the hash button if I had a complaint about the NHS, street lighting or council house transfers.
I listened in fury as the voice took me through numbers one to eight before telling me to "press button nine if you wish to speak to a person directly". "At last," I said, "I get to speak to Pandora." But it wasn't she. It was Lorraine from the call centre, who, after acrimonious exchange, informed me that "my call was being recorded".
I rang my new stepmother (and Pandora's mother), Tania, and asked for Pandora's email address. "I'm cleaning out the koi carp pond, Adrian," she said. "Could you ring me back at a more convenient time?"
"So, you are putting your koi carp pets in front of your step-grandson's dilemma, are you?" I said angrily.
"As a matter of fact, I am," she snapped. "I agree with Patience. Shorts and vests did make this country great." It's true: advancing age does turn people right-wing. Tania used to be a leading radical in the political circles of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
Tuesday, March 14
Now William is in trouble at school for opining that Posh Spice should be the next Queen of England. According to him, Mrs Claricoates, his teacher, made him sit in the Wendy-and-Kevin house alone during storytime. As a punishment, I know that's not exactly in the bamboo-under-the-fingernails league, but he was still upset when he got home and totally confused about the hereditary principle.
I kept Glenn at home today while I considered my next move in the tracksuit row: a letter to Jeremy Corbyn? Alert the Leicester Mercury? Or a petition?
Wednesday, March 15
Vince Ludlow has been arrested for failing to pay £140 arrears! Four policemen served a warrant on him at 7.30am. Apparently, he was fined £280 in October 1997. He stole the brass knob from the door of the magistrates court after celebrating his birthday at Snobs in town. Peggy was distraught as, from our respective doorsteps, we watched the police van turn the corner. She sobbed, "Vince gone, and not a bleedin' fag in the 'ouse."
Thursday, March 16
My father is worried about Longbridge. "It's bloody tragic. How'mi gonna get spares for the Rover?"
Saw Lizzie Broadway, my old schoolfriend, in the newsagents. She was buying cat food. I asked if she lived on the estate. "God, no," she said. "Do I look socially excluded?" before hurrying towards her BMW on the kerb, where a gang of local lads were measuring the hub caps with a tape measure.
Friday, March 17, St Patrick's Day
Pandora rang and ordered me to stop harassing her. In only three minutes she used the words «clear» or «clearly» 19 times. Is it now compulsory for politicians to use this word?
Piggmalion
Monday, March 20, 2000
Glenn's photograph is on the front of tonight's Ashby Bugle. The headline said, "Glen cross about country run." It was not a flattering portrait: the combination of his new Beckham haircut and the way he was scowling into the sun gave him the look of a youth at a fascist training camp. As I paid for my copy, a pensioner behind me looked at Glenn and said, "I wunt like to meet him down a dark alley."
I longed to tell the mustachioed lard-belly that Glenn was a good boy, but she picked an argument with the newsagent about non-delivery of her People's Friend, so I left without defending my son. When I got home, I read the article with growing disgust; it was littered with inaccuracies.
To the Editor, the Ashby Bugle
Dear Sir, It is not my habit to write to the papers, but I must on this occasion as you have written an ill-informed and inaccurate article about my son, Glenn, and his refusal to wear shorts during cross-country running at his school, Neil Armstrong Comprehensive.
1. Glen is Glenn. You misspelt his name throughout.
2. I am Adrian Mole, not A Drain-Mole.
3. I am 33 years old, not 73.
4. I am not 'unemployed'; I am currently writing a serial-killer-comedy for the BBC called The White Van.
5. Glenn does not wear an earring in his right ear. He wears it in his left lobe.
6. Glenn does not have the support of our MP, Dr Pandora Braithwaite. She refused to back our campaign. I quote from her recent email: "I am too fg busy with the Onion Working Party to faff about with fg school uniform issues."
I remain, Sir, yours, A Mole, father of Glenn
Tuesday, March 21
Glenn came to me tonight as I was ironing and listening to The Archers. He begged me to allow him back to school, and said he would happily wear white shorts on cross-country runs. I reminded him that Midlands Today was interested in covering his campaign on its news spot.
He said, "It's not my campaign any more, Dad. It's yours." As I ironed his white shorts, I reflected on the sacrifices parents make for their children. I'll be a laughing stock at the next parents' evening.
Thursday, March 23
The following letter was in the Bugle tonight.
Dear Editor
The BBC would like to make it clear that Adrian Mole has not been commissioned by us to write a serial-killer-comedy called The White Van.
Yours sincerely, Geoffrey Perkins (Head of Comedy)
So, the BBC now employ spies to read the regional newspapers, does it? Institutional paranoia or what?
Friday, March 24
Pamela Pigg from the homeless unit called round on her way home from work, to tell me there's a vacant maisonette on the Prescott Estate. "It's a new housing complex, purpose-built for tenants aspiring to join the new middle class."
She said that Alan Titchmarsh had been consulted about the design of the patio/whee
lie bin area. He had declined, but as Pamela said, "At least he was consulted."
I made her a cup of Kenco and broached the delicate matter of changing her name by deed poll. She got very defensive and said there had been a Pigg in the Domesday Book, a Pigg at Ypres, and recently a Pigg had been awarded an OBE for services to the post office. When I said tentatively, "Yes, but how can a Mole go out with a Pigg?" she said shyly, "Well, we'd be Pamela and Adrian, wouldn't we?"
Saturday, March 25
Pamela and I had our first tryst watching the boat race. I bet her £500 that Cambridge would win, but I don't care. I think I may be in love with a woman called Pigg.
Fool for love
Tuesday, March 28, 2000
It's Pamela! Pamela! Pamela! I keep whispering her name to myself. However, I don't whisper her surname — Pigg — though I remain optimistic that she will eventually seize the day and change her name by deed poll.
But oh, those sublime three syllables: Pam-e-la. It's Abba's music! It's a mountain stream. It's Leicester Town Hall gardens with the cherry blossom out. It's Edward Heath's laugh. It's a refrigerated Crunchie bar.
But Pigg. Pigg is brutish and short. It's slurry. It's the Queen Mother's teeth. It's that local authority prickly stuff that thrives next to inner ring roads. It's the predictable twist at the end of a Jeffrey Archer story. It's Ann Widdecombe's fringe.
Wednesday, March 29
Am I in love? I rang Nigel at work, and he faxed me a questionnaire. Some of the questions were relevant, some were not. He told me that if I answer yes to any four, then I am definitely in love. He had scribbled on the bottom that the questionnaire was obviously prepared for gay men, but it probably works for straights, too.
a) Do you think about him constantly?
b) Have you had your chest hair waxed?
c) Do you ring him more than four times a day?
d) Have you stopped going to saunas?
e) Are you afraid to have your hair cut in case he doesn't like it?
f) Are you writing overwrought poetry about nature?
I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of Kenco and a ballpoint, and quickly found out that I am in love with Pamela Pigg. I rang her at the housing office to tell her so (my fifth call of the day), but the senior housing officer, Terry Nutting, told me that he had given Pamela "compassionate leave" to have her hair done.
Nutting thinks he is such a wit. He'll be laughing on the other side of his beardy face when Pamela leaves to become my wife. According to Pammy, Nutting is an incompetent idler who sits all day in his office answering the personal adds in Private Eye.
She said, in that sweet voice of hers (like a zephyr blowing across a linnet's egg), "Terry Nutting wouldn't recognise a homeless person if he fell over one in a shop doorway."
Friday, March 31
Pamela's new hairstyle is growing on me. Not, of course, literally growing on me. What I mean is that I can now glance in her direction for seconds at a time without flinching. I still think it was a mistake to go quite so short: her head is a rather peculiar shape, and her scalp is criss-crossed with scars and the evidence of childhood accidents.
Saturday, April, 1 — April Fool's Day
At 11.30am, my sister Rosie rang to say that there was a letter at their house addressed to me from Greg Dyke, head bloke at the BBC, to say that he had read the Restless Tadpole, my epic poem, and wanted Andrew Davies to adapt it for BBC2. When I asked her to fax me the letter, she laughed her horrible laugh and put the phone down.
Sunday, April 2
So, I have reached the age of 33 — the same age as Jesus was when he was killed. Glenn gave me a card which said on the front in gothic print "Happy Birthday Single Father". There was a picture of a man with a moustache standing on a hump-backed bridge and staring down into a river — as though he was thinking about throwing himself in. Perhaps to escape his responsibilities. William had made a card at nursery school out of egg shells, lentils and crushed cornflakes. I thanked him but privately thought it was disgusting, especially when half the world is starving.
Mushrooms in Stockport
Monday, April 3, 2000, Arthur Askey Way
My love affair with Pamela moved into a sexual stage tonight, though "full union", as she calls it, has yet to take place. Pamela is a fan of the female condom, but, after examining one she took out of her briefcase, we discovered that it had been issued in 1998.
We decided not to risk it. Pam was keen to consummate, saying, "I just want to get it out of the way, Adrian." I explained that I hadn't kept condoms in the house since William took one to nursery school as his contribution to the hot-air-balloon mural. It was an eagle-eyed Ofsted inspector who spotted the "big boy arouser" rising between the cotton-wool cloud.
Pamela asked me if I'd like to go to Stockport next weekend to meet her parents. I lied and said, "Yes, Wiggly." She asked me to call her Wiggly. She calls me Snuffly. I've had a slight head cold since we met.
Tuesday, April 4
The Ludlows held a welcome home from prison party for Vince tonight. I went next door at 10pm, after William and Glenn had gone to bed. I don't want my boys to associate the word «prison» with the word «party».
Vince said he had seen Jonathan Aitken in the prison chapel, and had witnessed Mr Aitken's religious fervour. Vince said, " 'e was shakin' 'is tambourine so 'ard that 'is Rolex fell off".
Vince told me to back Papillon in the Grand National. I said it was highly unlikely that another son/jockey and father/ trainer combination would win. I rang Pamela as soon as I got home. She said she was in bed with a Trollope. "Anthony or Joanna?" I asked. Pamela laughed, as though I'd made a joke.
Thursday, April 6
The Piggs' don't like children, so my mother is babysitting William for the weekend and Glenn is going to his mother's. Pamela warned me tonight not to tell her father that I am an unpublished poet and novelist. I pointed out that I have published two cookery books: Offaly Good and Offaly Good Again. She told me that her father was a militant vegetarian and a former RAF kayak instructor. I dread meeting Mr Pigg.
Friday, April 7, The Olde Forge, Stockport
He is even worse than I feared. "Call me Porky!" he boomed. He was wearing a sort of fleecy Babygro garment and rubber socks. He had just returned from a training session on an artificial slalom course on the River Tees. He has offered to take me down the rapids in his double kayak on Sunday. Mrs Pigg was loading her van in preparation for a country fayre, at which she sells the hedgehog boot scrapers she makes out of pine cones and plastic bristles.
As Mrs Pigg was showing me to my single bed, she asked me to call her Snouty. When I enquired what her real Christian name was, she glared and said, "Why are you presuming that my parents were Christians?" I told her I'd seen the photograph on the mantelpiece of her parents' wedding, which had been taken outside a church and been attended by a vicar holding a copy of the Old Testament. She said that I "mustn't bother" Pamela in the night, as Mr Pigg did not approve of sex before long-term commitment.
Saturday, April 8
The Piggs took me to a Beefeater restaurant for dinner tonight. A cardboard cut-out of the TV chef Brian Turner welcomed us in. The conversation ground to a halt over pre-dinner drinks, when Porky discovered that I am a single father living in a council house. The tension was palpable. Pamela developed a most unflattering tic in her left eye.
But all was not lost because Porky and I chose the lightly breaded deep-fried mushrooms at £2.95 (with a choice of two dips). Porky and I now have something in common: we will talk about our Beefeater experience for many years to come. Thank you, Mr Turner.
Ex-ham time
Monday, April 10, 2000, Arthur Askey Way
William woke up screaming in the night. He'd been having a nightmare about the exams he will be taking when he is seven. He was mostly incoherent, but I managed to glean that his nightmare included David Blunkett's guide dog and the gay Teletubbie. I didn't press him for details.
Pame
la hasn't rung me since our weekend with her parents. I fear that beside the hirsute masculinity of her father I appear a poor specimen. My expert knowledge of the early poetry of Philip Larkin cannot compete with Porky Pigg's ability to roll a double kayak in white water. I could tell that my refusal to join Porky in his flimsy plastic boat sowed doubts in Pamela's mind.
Did some primeval instinct warn her that my spermatozoa and her eggs were incompatible and wouldn't add to the quality of the gene pool? Whatever — as they say on Jerry Springer — she was very quiet as we drove south and didn't offer her tongue when I kissed her goodnight. Ugh.
Tuesday, April 11
This morning, I handed William his usual carrier bag full of toilet rolls and squashed cereal packets and was amazed when he handed it straight back to me, saying, "We can't play at school any more, Dad, so don't collect 'em up."
At home time, I broke the rules and waited outside William's classroom. On looking through the glass panel in the door I saw that the children were sitting in rows being taught exam techniques by an "exam trainer". (Formerly known as a teaching assistant.) The weather chart and the nature table were nowhere to be seen. The hamster cage was empty.
There were various exhortations around the room. As I watched, the exam trainer wrote "Exams are good, play is bad" on the white board. The children dipped their pens in their inkwells and copied this slogan down. Since when has it been compulsory to write in ink? I fear that once again Mrs Parvez has misinterpreted education-department guidelines.