Sue Townsend

Susan Lillian Townsend FRSL is an English novelist and playwright, best known as the author of the Adrian Mole books. Although her writing primarily combines comedy with social commentary, she has also written purely dramatic works. Townsend was born in Leicester and went to Glen Hills Primary School, where the school secretary was Mrs Claricotes, a name she used for the school secretary in the Adrian Mole books. Her father was a postman and she was the eldest of five sisters. After failing her 11-plus exam, Townsend then went to the secondary modern South Wigston High School. She left... school at the age of 15 and worked in a variety of jobs including factory worker and shop assistant. She married a sheet-metal worker and had three children under five by the time she was 22. She joined a writers' group at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester in her thirties. She has four children: Sean, Daniel, Victoria and Elizabeth. At the time of writing the first Adrian Mole book, Townsend was living on the Saffron Lane Estate, a stone's-throw away from the house in which playwright Joe Orton was brought up.
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