After Dinner Speakers: Sue Townsend, Hank Marvin, Rachel Stevens

Sue Townsend was born in a 'prefab' on Hillsborough Road, Glen Parva, Leicester in 1946, and despite quitting school at 15, went on to become a household name after her book "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 ľ" sold millions of copies in Britain and around the world. Sue attended Glen Hills Primary School in Glen Parva (my old school) starting in 1951, and her memories of those early days at that school are reproduced in an article below called "Diary of a Schoolgirl Aged 4 Ľ." Before her success with Adrian Mole, for two decades, she worked in a factory, and was a shop assistant and garage attendant. At the age of 35 she won the Thames TV playwrights' award, launching her writing career. Her most famous creation is the neurotic diarist Adrian Mole, first introduced in 1985 in "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole." The best selling 'Diary' series was followed up with "The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole" and "The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole." In 1991 she wrote the bestseller "The Queen and I" - a wonderfully humorous novel in which the Royal Family are deposed (thrown out) and land up living in a council estate in Leicester. A play by the same name was adapted from her novel and presented by Max Stafford-Clark's new "Out of Joint" touring company in conjunction with the Leicester Haymarket and the Royal Court. Other books by Sue include "Rebuilding Coventry" (1988) and "Ghost Children" (1998). As well as attending Glen Hills school in the early 50s, Sue also attended South Wigston Secondary Modern for Girls (approximately from 1957 to 1961) from where some ex-pupils still remember her for her antics. In 1999 Sue Townsend was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy and began losing her sight. She is now "as technically near to blind as you can get." She is married and still lives in Leicester.