by Sue Townsend
MOLE, ROSIE:
Adrian’s much younger sister. Has adopted the ‘rebel’ persona, and is currently failing at Leeds University alongside her latest inelegantly wasted boyfriend. The doubts about her paternity are finally settled live on The Jeremy Kyle Show.
BRAITHWAITE, IVAN:
Father of Pandora. Supposedly freelance dairy management consultant and freethinker.
BRAITHWAITE, DR. PANDORA:
Adrian Mole’s beautiful, treacle-haired first girlfriend and lifelong obsession. Now a Junior Minister in the Foreign Office. Willing to confide in Adrian as a trusted friend, but her autobiography Out of the Box has two entries under ‘Mole, Adrian’, and 112 under ‘Lovers’.
BRAITHWAITE, TANIA:
Mother of Pandora. Teaches Women’s Studies at De Montford university.
CARLTON-HAYES, MR:
Adrian’s employer.
LESLIE:
Mr Carlton-Hayes’ partner of unknown gender.
The Adrian Mole Diaries
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ & The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole
(January 1981–June 1983)
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
BAXTERY, BERT
Belligerent and filthy 89-year-old communist who has sworn not to die until capitalism is destroyed; eventually becoming the oldest man in Leicester. Lives on beetroot sandwiches, Vesta curry and brown ale, and speaks fluent Hindi. After joining ‘Good Samaritans’ in a misguided attempt to avoid maths, Adrian becomes his toe-nail cutter, bottle washer and friend for the next sixteen years.
BRAITHWAITE, PANDORA
Adrian Mole’s beautiful, treacle-haired first girlfriend and lifelong obsession. In youth, a pony riding swot whose motto is ‘get to Oxford or die’; she soon leaves Adrian and ‘the wretched provinces’ far behind. Academic stardom smoothes her way to Parliament, the edge of power and a love affair with the TV cameras. A political Helen of Troy, her ambitious path to become Labour’s first woman Prime Minister is littered with strategic conquests. Although willing to confide in Adrian as a trusted friend, her autobiography Out of the Box has two entries under ‘Mole, Adrian’, and 112 under ‘lovers’.
BRAITHWAITE, IVAN
Father of Pandora. In 1981 a self-satisfied, bourgeois-left dairy accountant. After transforming into a freelance information consultant he suffers several episodes of technology-induced mania and Choice Overload Syndrome. Involved in the great Mole family partner swap. A sartorial disaster area.
BRAITHWAITE, TANIA
Mother of Pandora. A pretentious well-groomed bohemian who later loses her dress sense after a mild stroke. Also involved in the great Mole family partner swap. A fanatical devotee of Japanese gardening, she can often be seen raking the gravel.
DOG, THE
The Mole dog, never given a proper name by family tradition. Follows Adrian to school, stands in front of the television and is always expensively at the vet’s.
ELLIOT, COURTNEY
Erudite ex-academic postman with a red-spotted bow tie and ruffled shirt. Will help with exam-coaching and lend a fiver when the giro fails to arrive.
KENT, BARRY
Adrian’s nemesis and tormenter. School bully and local yob leader. Taught to read in prison, he performs as ‘Baz the skinhead poet’ and fashions a career as a poet and novelist, delighting the intelligentsia with political rants in an exaggerated Leicester accent. His modern classic, ‘Dork’s Diary’ featuring ‘Aiden Vole’ is still selling strongly. Adrian is constantly surprised by the extent of his hatred for Kent, which is undiminished after twenty years.
LEMON, RICK
Socially conscious leader of the ‘Off the Streets’ youth club, where he encourages Adrian to be an individual and throw off his petit-bourgeois shackles. Has since moved out of a squat and bought a new semi on the Badger’s Copse Barrett estate.
LUCAS, MR (CREEP LUCAS)
Next-door neighbour to the Mole family. A smarmy, self-assured insurance salesman. Embarks on a doomed affair with Pauline Mole which ends badly in a Sheffield bed-sit. Believes himself to be Rosie Mole’s father.
LUCAS, MRS
Estranged wife of Mr Lucas who left him for another woman.
MANCINI, HAMISH
Adrian’s American ‘holiday friend’ who becomes an unwanted pen pal and guest. Overenthusiastic and under analysis; his psychiatrist in New York is doing great things with his libido.
MOLE, GEORGE
Adrian’s father. His many episodes of hospitalization, depression, unemployment and erectile dysfunction have taken their toll. A cynical persona hides a self-pitying, sentimental streak; will admit to crying over Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the only ‘literature’ he has ever read. Has made several attempts to join the middle-classes by pronouncing his aitches, but is sabotaged by his liking for HP sauce on toast and a lack-lustre employment history. In later life dresses to give the impression that he was once in the music business, but will always look like a retired storage heater salesman. Despite their many tribulations he still loves Pauline Mole, but yearns for pre-feminist times when she wore high heels in the house and women were not allowed to captain warships.
MOLE, ALBERT (GRANDDAD MOLE)
George Mole’s father, Adrian’s long-dead grandfather, whose memory is revered by May Mole. Shaved daily in the trenches at Ypres even though rats ate his soap. A rich source of inspiration for Adrian’s various therapists.
MOLE, MAY (GRANDMA MOLE)
George Mole’s mother; Adrian’s fearsome grandmother. The only real authority figure in the Mole family, the provider of proper Sunday dinners, constant electricity and unwanted religion. An enemy of Bert Baxter, whom she regards as a disruptive influence on Evergreen’s coach trips.
MOLE, PAULINE (NÉE SUGDEN)
Adrian’s mother is a mass of contradictions; an ardent feminist in the early eighties, she nevertheless still tends to define herself by the men in her life. She has a tawdry glamour and would not pick the milk up from the doorstep without first applying her lipstick. Pauline knows that she has not reached her full potential: ‘I haven’t got a single letter after my name and only Mrs in front.’ She craves drama and excitement, which could explain why she has been married five times, (three to the same man, George Mole), and is very fond of litigation. Stumbling over a cracked paving slab, in Pauline’s world, is a marvellous opportunity to make money and appear as a dramatic witness in the Small Claims court. As George Mole’s health deteriorates, Pauline finds that she is not a natural nurse; the virtues of patience and constancy are foreign to her, as are the domestic arts –he was a pioneering and enthusiastic user of boil-in-the-bag convenience meals.
She has balsamic vinegar and HP sauce on the table, Barbara Taylor Bradford and Raymond Carver on her bookshelves and records The Jeremy Kyle Show and Newsnight on Sky Plus. She is determined to have one last sexual fling before she dies.
MOLE, ROSIE
Adrian’s much younger sister. Since the day he witnessed her birth she has been a worry to him. At three she was ‘Rosemary’ and followed him ‘like a little shadow’; by fourteen a foul-mouthed vamp who regarded him with loathing. Although reconciled with Adrian, she has been known to spend Christmas day in Hull with a crack addicted boyfriend rather than endure the Mole family celebrations. There have always been doubts about her paternity.
MOLE, SUSAN
Adrian’s aunt. A prison officer at Holloway, smokes Panama cigars and is partner to the glamorous and sexy Gloria.
HETHERINGTON, NIGEL
Adrian’s life-long best friend, a cynical observer of his suffering over the years. Nigel’s abundant consumer goods are a constant reminder to the young Adrian of his relative poverty and parental neglect. A seeker, Nigel flirts with various sexualities, religions and subcultures, finally escaping to London for ‘music and sex’ after being removed from NatWest counters for wearing Buddhist robes. Well connected in the Soho ‘pink mafia’, he is registered blind in 2002 and returns to Leicester
embittered and unemployed.
QUEENIE
Bert Baxter’s new wife, described by Adrian as ‘one of those loud types of old lady that dyes her hair and tries to look young’. Their romance scandalizes the residents of the Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home.
SCRUTON, MR (POP-EYED SERUTON)
Manic Headmaster of Neil Armstrong Comprehensive School who terrifies pupils and staff alike. His fanatical belief in dress standards is indirectly responsible for Adrian’s Pandora Braithwaite fixation, via the ‘red socks’ protest movement. A devout admirer of Mrs Thatcher.
SINGH FAMILY
The Mole family’s new next-door neighbours, temporary carers for Bert Baxter.
SLATER, DOREEN (STICK INSEET)
George Mole’s anorexic lover, a single mother with ‘no bust and no bum&;. Mother of Adrian’s half-brother Brett.
TUDEMAN, JOHN
Kindly Assistant Head of Radio Drama for the BBC. The accidental recipient of Adrian’s handwritten manuscripts, ensuring torment and large return postage bills for many years. Later Head of Radio Drama.
SABRE
Bert Baxter’s irritable, vicious Alsatian. Fellow Alsatians cower as he passes by. Needs a four-mile daily walk or he chews the sink for entertainment.
SUGDEN, MR & MRS
Adrian’s maternal grandparents. Norfolk potato farmers incapable of enjoying themselves unless something is being harvested or slaughtered. They have never understood why Pauline Mole abandoned the black fields for the bright lights of Leicester, but see it as their duty to spend every Christmas disapproving of her ‘wanton’ lifestyle.
True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole, including Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians
(October 1985 – January 1991)
BOTT, SHARON
Adrian’s second girlfriend and the mother of his son, Glenn. ‘A provincial dullard working in a laundry’, in the harsh assessment of the 18-year-old Adrian. Since their disastrous first date at fourteen she has dramatically expanded and is now reminiscent of ‘Moby Dick with a perm’. Adrian thinks their relationship was always doomed due to the class divide: he upper-working/lower-middle, she lower-working/underclass. A warm-hearted but ineffectual mother who lives in mild squalor.
BROWN, MR
Adrian’s boss in the Newt Section at the Department of the Environment in Oxford. A wildlife fanatic dressed by Man at C&A who claims to have not taken a day off in twenty-two years. Has spent Christmas Day classifying seaweed at Dungeness.
MUFFETT, MARTIN
Wilbur Smith-loving engineering student who holds Adrian and all intellectuals in contempt. A lodger in the Mole household who becomes Pauline Mole’s second husband, ageing ten years in the process.
LIVINGSTONE, ROCKY (BIG BOY)
Pandora’s live-in lover in Oxford. A 16-stone bodybuilder with a chain of gyms, he is happily unaware of the existence of the things Adrian worries about and ‘lives in a world of sight and sound only’.
TWYSLETON-FYFE, JULIAN
Pandora’s horse-faced gay husband. Amiably studying Chinese at Oxford, but doesn’t intend to sit his finals. A minor aristocrat who strives for eccentricity and fails to achieve it.
Adrian Mole: The Wildeness Years
(January 1991–April 1992)
BELLINGHAM, BELINDA
George Mole’s glacial new partner/ employer, the managing director of a burglar alarm company with questionable sales tactics. A frightening blonde.
CAVENDISH, JACK (BLUEBEARD)
Pandora’s lover. An aged professor of linguistics at Oxford. A three-times, divorced, rumpled, womanizing alcoholic with ten children, many in therapy or rehab.
DARTINGTON, BIANCA
A hydraulic-engineering graduate working at a newsagent’s in Oxford. Quietly pretty, she is attracted to an oblivious Adrian, eventually drawing him to London despite his reservations over her profligate use of exclamation marks and love of Guns ‘n’ Roses. She gets him out of grey slip-on loafers and into Next and the 1990s.
DE WITT, LEONORA
Beautiful Gestalt psychotherapist, with long flowing ‘midnight river’ hair and no shortage of clients suffering from transference. Adrian is quite willing to pay her £30 and beat a chair with a stick. A boxing fan.
HACKER, ANGELA
Celebrity novelist and drinker, teaches Adrian ‘Writing for Pleasure’ at the Faxos Institute, Faxos. She ‘facilitates Adrian’s epiphany’ and encourages him to swim naked in the Aegean.
HEDGE, MRS
Adrian’s mournful literary landlady. Slovenly.
MOLE, JO JO
African Princess. Heiress to her mother’s Nigerian lorry tyre conglomerate. Tall, beautiful, dreadlocked, marries Adrian out of a mixture of pity and love. A talented artist and mother of William Mole. Out of Adrian’s league in every way possible, the marriage can only be seen as a folie à deux.
PALMER, CHRISTIAN
Adrian’s live-in landlord/boss. An undercover popular-culture academic with three precocious children and a babysitting problem. Wears his hair in late-period Elvis’ style, and laughs like a barking dog.
PALMER, CASSANDRA
Shaven-headed wife of Christian; absent directing a film on mutilation in LA, where she learns to function on the cutting edge of politically correct. Her return is not joyfully celebrated by the Palmer household.
SAVAGE, PETER
Adrian’s boss; a rotund celebrity alcoholic with a Bob Hoskins accent. Owner of Savage’s and it’s later perfection, Hoi Polloi, and winner of the ‘Rudest Restauranteur of 1990’ award. His arbitrary banning orders exclude most of the population of central London from his premises.
Adrian Mole: The Cappuccin Years
(April 1997–May 1998)
BANKS, LES
A very unlucky builder contracted to work on the roof of Rampart Terrace.
BOTT-MOLE, GLENN
Adrian’s long unidentified illegitimate son, by Sharon Bott. Semi-literate and a stranger to correct grammar, but with an optimistic and loving nature. Easily satisfied; the happiest time of his life was when Leicester City first won the Worthington Cup. Adrian cannot wait to get him out of gangsta clothes and into Junior Next.
FLOOD, ELEANOR
Glenn’s neurotic home-tutor, head of remedial studies at the Keith Joseph Academy. Adrian’s stalker, obsessed with phoenix symbolism and wears only black.
JUSTINE
Adrian’s Soho confidante, with all the latest gossip. An exotic dancer at Large Alan’s with the dress sense expected of a woman who regularly embraces a python for cash.
KENT, EDNA
Mother of Barry Kent. Toilet cleaner; later secretary to Pandora Braithwaite, courtesy of an access course and two degrees. One of which is in family law, where she has a good head start.
LUIGI
The very Italian Maître d’ of Hoi Polloi. Has been in the business twenty-seven years, and is a ‘personal friend’ of Sophia Loren and Tommy Steele.
MALCOLM
Dishwasher at Hoi Polloi. Illiterate, but believes Tony Blair’s new regime will teach him all he needs to know.
MOLE, WILLIAM
Adrian’s young son by Jo Jo. Obsessed with Teletubbies and ‘motoring oaf’ Jeremy Clarkson; living with the Mole family in Ashby-de-la-Zouch after his parents’ separation. Spends most of his days sitting inside a cardboard box. Later moves to Nigeria, changing his name to Wole Mole.
MONTEFIORI, ZIPPO
Floppy-fringed producer of Adrian’s daytime cookery show, Offally Good! Never seen without his black Armani overcoat, but doesn’t sweat. There is rumoured to be a waiting list for potential girlfriends.
DOG, NEW
Replacement for the original Dog. Adrian is secretly less fond of it, believing it to lack character.
SINGH, DEV
Eye-rolling, double-entendre-loving Sikh co-presenter of Offally Good! A manufactured cult figure for students and the real star of the show, he is secretly scared by his own performance.