The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3⁄4

Spring 1981

All Fools’ Day

Nigel rang up this morning and pretended he was an undertaker and asked when he was to pick up the body. My father answered the phone. Honestly! He has got no sense of humour.

I had a good laugh telling girls that their petticoats were showing when they weren’t. Barry Kent brought a packet of itching powder into the Art lesson, he put some down Ms Fossington-Gore’s flying boots. She is another one without any sense of humour. Barry Kent put some down my back. It wasn’t funny. I had to go to the matron and have it removed.

The house is looking extremely squalid because my father is not doing any housework. The dog is pining for my mother.

I was born exactly thirteen years and three hundred and sixty-four days ago.

I am fourteen today! Got a track suit and a football from my father. (He is completely insensitive to my needs.) A Boy’s Bookof Carpentry from my grandma Mole. (No comment.) One pound inside a card from my grandad Sugden. (Last of the big spenders.) Best of all was ten pounds from my mother and five pounds from Mr Lucas. (Conscience money.)

Nigel sent a joke card; it said on the front, ‘Who’s sexy, charming, intelligent and handsome?’ Inside it said, ‘Well it certainly ain’t you buddy!!!’ Nigel wrote ‘No offence mate’. He put ten pence inside the envelope.

Bert Baxter sent a card to the school because he doesn’t know where I live. His handwriting is dead good, I think it is called ‘brass plate’. His card had a picture of an alsatian on the front. Inside Bert had written, ‘Best wishes from Bert and Sabre. P.S. Drain blocked up’. Inside the card there was a book token for ten shillings. It expired in December 1958, but it was a kind thought.

So at last I am fourteen! Had a good look at myself in the mirror tonight and I think I can detect a certain maturity. (Apart from the rotten spots.)

Got full marks in the Geography test today. Yes! I am proud to report that I got twerjty out of twenty! I was also complimented on the neat presentation of my work. There is nothing I don’t know about the Norwegian leather industry. Barry Kent seems to take delight in being ignorant. When Miss Elf asked him where Norway was in relation to Britain he said, ‘First cousin twice removed’. It hurts me to relate that even Pandora laughed with the rest of the class. Only Miss Elf and I remained composed. Unblocked Bert Baxter’s drain, it was full of old bones and tea leaves. I told Bert that he really ought to use tea-bags. After all this is the twentieth century! Bert said that he would give them a try. I told him that my mother has run away with an insurance man, he said ‘Was it an Act of God?’ Then he laughed until his eyes watered.

New Moon

Me and my father cleaned the house up today. We had no choice: my grandma is coming for tea tomorrow. We went to Sainsbury’s in the afternoon. My father chose a trolley that was impossible to steer. It also squeaked as if somebody was torturing mice. I was ashamed to be heard with it. My father chose food that is bad for you. I had to put my foot down andinsist that he bought some fresh fruit and salad. When we got to the check-out he couldn’t find his banker’s card, the cashier wouldn’t take a cheque without it, so the supervisor had to come and stop the argument. I had to lend my father some of my birthday money. So he owes me eight pounds thirty-eight and a half pence. I made him write an IOU on the back of the till roll.

But I must say that I take my hat off to Sainsbury’s, they seem to attract a better class of person. I saw a vicar choosing toilet paper; he chose a four-roll pack of purple three-ply. He must have money to burn! He could have bought some shiny white and given the difference to the poor. What a hypocrite!

Passion Sunday

Nigel came round this morning. He is still mad about Pandora. I tried to take his mind off her by talking about the Norwegian leather industry but he couldn’t get interested somehow.

I made my father get up at 1 PM. I don’t see why he should lie stinking in bed all day when I am up and about. He got up and went outside to clean the car. He found one of my mother’s earrings down the side of the back seat and he just sat there staring at it. He said, ‘Adrian, do you miss your mother?’ I replied, ‘Of course I do, but life must go on’. He then said, ‘I don’t see why’. I took this to mean that he was suicidal, so I immediately went upstairs and removed anything harmful from the bathroom.

After we had eaten our frozen roast-beef dinner and I was washing up, he shouted from the bathroom for his razor. I lied and shouted back that I didn’t know where it was. I then removed every knife and sharp instrument from the kitchen drawer. He tried to get his battery razor to work but the batteries had leaked and gone all green.

I like to think I am broad-minded but the language my father used was beyond the pale, and all because he couldn’t have a shave! Tea was a bit of a drag. My grandma kept saying horrible things about my mother and my father kept rambling on about how much he missed her. Nobody even noticed I was in the room! The dog got more attention than me!

My grandma told my father off for growing a beard. She said, ‘You may think it amusing to look like a communist, George, but I don’t’. She said that even in the trenches at Ypres my grandad had shaved every day. Sometimes he had to stop rats from eating his shaving soap. She said that my grandad was even shaved by the undertaker when lying in his coffin, so if the dead could shave there was no excuse for the living. My father tried to explain, but grandma didn’t stop talking once so it was a bit difficult.

We were both glad when she went home.

Looked at Big and Bouncy. It is Passion Sunday after all!

Had a postcard from my mother. It said ‘they’ were staying with friends until they found a flat. She said I could go and stay for a weekend when they were fixed up. I didn’t show it to my father.

My precious Pandora is going out with Craig Thomas. That’s the last time you get a Mars bar from me, Thomas!

Barry Kent is in trouble for drawing a nude woman in Art. Ms Fossington-Gore said that it wasn’t so much the subject matter but his ignorance of basic biological facts that was so upsetting. I did a good drawing of the Incredible Hulk smashing Craig Thomas to bits. Ms Fossington-Gore said it was a ‘powerful statement of monolithic oppression’.

Phone call from my mother. Her voice sounded funny as if she had a cold. She kept saying, ‘You’ll understand one day, Adrian’. There was a slurping sound in the background. I expect it was that Lucas creep kissing her neck. I have seen them do it on the films.

My father wouldn’t give me a note excusing me from Games so I spent nearly all morning dressed in pyjamas diving into a swimming pool and picking up a brick from the bottom. I had a bath when I came home but I still smell of chlorine. I just don’t see the point of the above lesson. When I am grown up I am hardly going to walk along a river bank in my pyjamas am I? And who would be stupid enough to dive into a river for a boring old brick? Bricks are lying around all over the place!

My father and me had a good talk last night. He asked me who I would prefer to live with, him or my mother? I said both. He told me he had made friends with a woman at work, she is called Doreen Slater. He said he would like me to meet her one day. Here we go again; so much for the suicidal, heartbroken, deserted husband!

Rang my grandmother to tell her about Doreen Slater. My grandma didn’t sound too pleased, she said it was a common-sounding name and I am inclined to agree with her.

Got Waiting for Godot out of the library. Disappointed to find that it was a play. Still, I will give it a go. I have been neglecting my brain lately.

Nigel asked me if I wanted to stay the weekend. His parents are going to a wedding in Croydon. My father said I could. He looked quite pleased. I am going round to Nigel’s in the morning.

I broke up for the Easter holidays today. Must make sure my brain keeps active.

First Quarter

Nigel is dead lucky. His house is absolutely fantastic! Everything is modern. I don’t know what he must think of our house, some of our furniture is over a hundred years old!

His bedroom is massive and he has got a stereo, a colour television, a tapedeck, a Scalextric track, an electric guitar and amplifier. Spotlights over his bed. Black walls and a white carpet and a racing car continental quilt. He has got loads of back issues of Big and Bouncy, so we looked through them, then Nigel had a cold shower while I cooked the soup and cut the French loaf. We had a good laugh at Waiting for Godot. Nigel had hysterics when I said that Vladimir and Estragon sounded like contraception pills.

I had a go on Nigel’s racing bike. I now want onemore than anything in the world. If I had to choose between Pandora and a racing bike, I would choose the bike. Sorry, Pandora, but that’s how things are.

We went to the chip shop and had the works. Fish, chips, pickled onions, gherkins, sloppy peas. Nothing was too expensive for Nigel, he gets loads of pocket money. We walked round for a bit then we came back and watched The Bug-Eyed Monster Strikes Back on the television. I said the bug-eyed monster reminded me of Mr Scruton the headmaster. Nigel had hysterics again. I think I have got quite a talent to amuse people. I might change my mind about becoming a vet and try writing situation comedy for television.

When the film finished Nigel said, ‘How about a nightcap?’ He went to the bar in the corner of the lounge and he poured us both a stiff whisky and soda. I hadn’t actually tasted whisky before and I never will again. How people can drink it for pleasure I don’t know. If it was in a medicine bottle they would pour it down the sink!

Don’t remember going to bed, but I must have done because I am sitting up in Nigel’s parents’ bed writing my diary.

Palm Sunday

This weekend with Nigel has really opened my eyes! Without knowing it I have been living in poverty for the past fourteen years. I have had to put up withinferior accommodation, lousy food and paltry pocket money. If my father can’t provide a decent standard of living for me on his present salary, then he will just have to start looking for another job. He is always complaining about having to flog electric storage heaters anyway. Nigel’s father has worked like a slave to create a modern environment for his family. Perhaps if my father had built a formica cocktail bar in the corner of our lounge my mother would still be living with us. But oh no. My father actually boasts about our hundred-year-old furniture.

Yes! Instead of being ashamed of our antiques, he is proud of the clapped-out old rubbish.

My father should take lessons from Great Literature. Madame Bovary ran away from that idiot Doctor Bovary because he couldn’t supply her needs.

Had a note from Mr Cherry asking me when I can resume my paper round. I sent a note back to say that due to my mother’s desertion I am still in a mental state. This is true. I wore odd socks yesterday without knowing it. One was red and one was green. I must pull myself together. I could end up in a lunatic asylum.

Had a postcard from my mother. She has found a flat and she wants me to visit her and Lucas as soon as possible.

Why can’t my mother write a ktter like any normal person? Why should the postman be able to read my confidential business? Her new address is 79A, President Carter Walk, Sheffield.

I asked my father if I could go; he said, ‘Yes, providing she sends the train fare’. So I have written a letter asking her to send eleven pounds eighty.

Went to the youth club with Nigel. It was dead good. We played ping-pong until the balls cracked. Then we had a go on the football table. I beat Nigel fifty goals to thirteen. Nigel went into a sulk and said that he only lost because his goalkeeper’s legs were stuck on with Sellotape but he was wrong. It was my superior skill that did it.

A gang of punks passed unkind comments about my flared trousers but Rick Lemon, the youth leader, stepped in and led a discussion on personal taste. We all agreed it should be up to the individual to dress how he or she likes. All the same I think I will ask my father if I can have a new pair of trousers. Not manyfourteen-year-olds wear flared trousers today, and I don’t wish to be conspicuous.

Barry Kent tried to get in the fire-doors to avoid paying his five-pence subs. But Rick Lemon pushed him back outside into the rain. I was very pleased. I owe Barry Kent two pounds’ menaces money.

Got a birthday card from my Auntie Susan, two weeks late! She always forgets the right day. My father said that she’s under a lot of pressure because of her job, but I can’t see it myself. I’d have thought that being a prison wardress was dead cushy, it is only locking and unlocking doors after afl. She has sent a present via the GPO so with luck I should get it by Christmas. Ha! Ha!

Good Friday

Poor Jesus, it must have been dead awful for him. I wouldn’t have had the guts to do it myself.

The dog has mauled the hot-cross buns; it doesn’t respect any traditions.

Got parcel from Auntie Susan. It is an embroidered toothbrush holder and it was made by one of the prisoners! She is called Grace Pool. Auntie Susan said that I should write and thank her! It is bad enough that my father’s sister works in Holloway Prison. But now I am expected to start writing to the prisoners! Grace Pool could be a murderess or anything!

Still waiting for the eleven pounds eighty pence. It doesn’t seem as if my mother is desperate to see me.

Easter Sunday

Today is the day that Jesus escaped from the cave. I expect that Houdini got the idea from him.

My father forgot to go to the bank on Friday so we are penniless. I had to take the pop bottles back to the shop to buy myself an Easter egg. Watched film, then had a fantastic tea at grandma’s. She made a cake covered in little fluffy chicks. Some of the fluff got into my father’s mouth, he had to have his back thumped hard. He always manages to spoil things. He has got no Social Decorum at all. Went to see Bert Baxter after tea. He was pleased to see me and I felt a bit rotten because I have neglected him lately. He gave me a pile of comics. They are called the Eagle and they have gotgreat pictures. I read them until 3 AM this morning. Us intellectuals keep anti-social hours. It does us good.

Bank Holiday in UK (except Scotland)

My father is in a rage because the bank is still shut. He has run out of cigarettes. It will do him good. No sign of the eleven pounds eighty pence. Wrote to Grace Pool. She is in ‘D’ Wing. I put:

My father was first in the queue at the bank this morning. When he got inside the cashier said he couldn’t have any money because he hadn’t got any left. My father demanded to see the manager. I was dead ashamed so I sat behind a plastic plant and waited until the shouting had stopped. Mr Niggard, the head bloke, came out and calmed my father down. He said he would arrange a temporary overdraft. My father looked dead pathetic, he kept saying, ‘It was that bloody vet’s bill’. Mr Niggard looked as if heunderstood. Perhaps he has got a mad dog as well. We can’t be the only ones, can we?

The eleven pounds, etc., came by second post so I am going to Sheffield tomorrow morning. I’ve never been on a train on my own before. I am certainly stretching my wings lately.

My father gave me a lift to the station. He also gave me a bit of advice about the journey; he said I was not to buy a pork pie from the buffet car.

I stood in the train with my head out of the window and my father stood on the platform. He kept looking at his watch. I couldn’t think of anything to say and neither could he. In the end I said, ‘Don’t forget to feed the dog, will you?’ My father gave a nasty laugh, then the train started to move so I waved and went to look for a non-smoking seat. All the filthy smokers were crammed together choking and coughing. They were a rough-looking, noisy lot so I hurried through their small carriage holding my breath. The non-smoking carriages seemed to have a quieter type of person in them. I found a window seat opposite an old lady. I had wanted to look at the landscape or read my book but the old bat started on about her daughter’s hysterectomy and telling me things I didn’t want to hear. She just about sent me barmy! It was nag, nag, nag. But thank God she got off at Chesterfield. She left her Woman’s Own behind so I had a goodlaugh at the Problem Page, read the story, and then the train slowed down for Sheffield. My mother started crying when she saw me. It was a bit embarrassing but quite nice at the same time. We got a taxi from the station, Sheffield looks OK, just like home really. I didn’t see any knife and fork factories. I expect Margaret Thatcher has closed them all down.

Lucas was out flogging insurance so I had my mother all to myself until eight o’clock. The flat is dead grotty, it is modern but small. You can hear the neighbours coughing. My mother is used to better things. I am dead tired, so will stop.

I hope my father is being kind to the dog. I wish my mother would come home, I had forgotten how nice she is.

St George’s Day

Me and mum went shopping today. We bought a Habitat lampshade for her bedroom and a new pair of trousers for me. They are dead good, really tight.

We had a Chinese Businessman’s Lunch and then went to see a Monty Python film all about the life of Jesus. It was dead daring, I felt guilty laughing.

Lucas was at the flat when we got back. He had got the dinner ready but I said I wasn’t hungry and I went to my room. It would choke me to eat anything that creep had touched! Later on I phoned my father froma call-box; I just had time to shout, ‘Don’t forget to feed the dog’, before the pips went.

Retired to bed early because of all the slopping Lucas was doing. He calls my mother ‘Paulie’ when he knows very well that her name is Pauline.

Helped my mother to paint her kitchen. She is doing it brown and cream, it looks awful, just like the toilets at school. Lucas bought me a penknife. He is trying to bribe me into liking him again. Hard luck, Lucas! Us Moles never forget. We are just like the Mafia, once you cross us we bear a grudge all our lives. He has stolen a wife and mother so he will have to pay the price! It is a shame because the penknife is full of gadgets that would be useful to me in my everyday life.

Lucas doesn’t work on Saturdays so I had to put up with his lechery all day. He is constantly touching my mother’s hand or kissing her or putting his arm round her shoulders, I don’t know how she stands it, it would drive me mad.

Lucas drove us out into the countryside this afternoon, it was hilly and high up. I got cold so I sat in the car and watched my mother and Lucas making anexhibition of themselves. Thank God, no members of the public were around. It is not a pretty sight to see old people running up hills laughing.

Came back, had a bath, thought about the dog, went to sleep.

Home tomorrow.

3 AM Just had a dream about stabbing Lucas with the toothpick on my penknife. Best dream I’ve had for ages.

2.10 PM. So my little sojourn in Sheffield is drawing to a dose. I am catching the 7.10 PM train which only leaves five hours to do my packing. My father was right. I didn’t need two suitcases of clothes. Still it is better to be safe than sorry, I always say. I shan’t be sorry to leave this sordid flat with the coughing neighbours, though naturally I have some regrets about my mother’s stubbornness in refusing to come home with me.

I told her that the dog was pining to death for her but she rang my father up and like a fool he told her that the dog had just eaten a whole tin of Pedigree Chum and a bowl of Winalot.

I told her about my father and Doreen Slater, hoping to send her mad with jealousy, but she just laughed and said, ‘Oh is Doreen still making the rounds?’ I have done my best to get her back, but must admit defeat.

11 PM. Journey back a nightmare, non-smoking compartments all full, forced to share carriage with pipes, cigars and cigarettes. Queued for twenty minutes for a cup of coffee in the buffet. Just got to the counter when the grille came down and the man put up a sign saying: ‘Closed due to signal failure’! Got back to seat, found a soldier in my place. Found another seat, but had to endure maniac sitting opposite telling me he had a radio inside his head controlled by Fidel Castro.

My father met me at the station, the dog jumped up to meet me, missed, and nearly fell in front of the 9.23 PM Birmingham express.

My father said he had had Doreen Slater for tea. By the state of the house I should think he’d had her for breakfast, dinner and tea! I have never seen the woman, but from the evidence she left behind I know she has got bright red hair, wears orange lipstick and sleeps on the left side of the bed.

What a homecoming!

My father said Doreen had ironed my school clothes ready for the morning. What did he expect? Thanks?

Mrs Bull taught us to wash up in Domestic Science. Talk about teaching your grandmother to suck eggs! I must be one of the best washer-uppers in the world! Barry Kent broke an unbreakable plate so Mrs Bull sent him out of the room. I saw him smoking quiteopenly in the corridor. He has certainly got a nerve! I felt it was my duty to report him to Mrs Bull. I did this purely out of concern for Barry Kent’s health. He was taken to pop-eye Scruton and his Benson and Hedges were confiscated. Nigel said he saw Mr Scruton smoking them in the staff room at dinner-time, but surely this can’t be true?

Pandora and Craig Thomas are creating a scandal by flaunting their sexuality in the playground. Miss Elf had to knock on the staff-room window and ask them to stop kissing.

Mr Scruton made a speech in assembly this morning. It was about the country’s lack of morals, but really he was talking about Pandora and Craig Thomas. The speech didn’t do any good because while we were singing ‘There is a Green Hill Far Away’, I distinctly saw glances of a passionate nature pass between them.

My father is worried, electric storage heaters are not selling well. My father says this proves that consumers are not as stupid as everyone thinks. I’m fed up with him mooning about the house at night. I have advised him to join a club or get a hobby but he isdetermined to feel sorry for himself. The only time he laughs is when those advertisements for electric storage heaters are shown on television. Then he laughs himself silly.

I was seriously menaced at school today. Barry Kent threw my snaplock executive brief-case on to the rugby pitch. I have got to find two pounds quickly before he starts throwing me on to the rugby pitch. It’s no good asking my father for money, he is in despair because of all the red bills.

Grandma rang early this morning to say ‘Cast ne’er a clout till May be out’. I haven’t got the faintest idea what she was going on about. All I know is that it has something to do with vests.

I am pleased to report that Barry Kent and his gang have been banned from the Off The Streets youth club. (But this means that they are now on the streets, worse luck.) They filled a French letter with water and threw it at a bunch of girls and made them scream. Pandora burst the thing with a badge pin and Rick Lemon came out of his office and slipped in the water. Rick was dead mad, he got dirty marks all over his yellow trousers. Pandora helped Rick to throw the gang out, she looked dead fierce. I expect she will win the medal for ‘Most helpful member of the year’.

Had a letter from Grace Pool! This is what it said:

My God! What shall I do?

Second after Easter

There is nothing left in the freezer, nothing in the pantry and only slimming bread in the bread bin. I don’t know what my father does with all the money. I was forced to go round to grandma’s before I died from malnutrition. At four o’clock I had one of thoserare moments of happiness that I will remember all my life. I was sitting in front of grandma’s electric coal fire eating dripping toast and reading the News of the World. There was a good play on Radio Four about torturing in concentration camps. Grandma was asleep and the dog was being quiet. All at once I felt this dead good feeling. Perhaps I am turning religious, I think I have got it in me to be a Saint of some kind.

Phoned Auntie Susan but she is on duty in Holloway. Left a message with her friend Gloria, asking Auntie Susan to ring me urgently.

Bank Holiday in UK. New Moon

Auntie Susan rang to say that Grace Pool has had her parole cancelled because she set fire to the embroidery workshop and destroyed a gross of toothbrush holders. Their loss is my gain!

Saw our postman on the way to school, he said that my mother is coming to visit me on Saturday. I’ve a good mind to report him to the Postmaster General for reading a person’s private postcard!

My father had also read my postcard by the time I got home from school. He looked pleased and startedcleaning rubbish out of the lounge, then he rang Doreen Slater and said he would have to ‘take a rain check on Saturday’s flick’. Grown ups are always telling adolescents to speak clearly then they go and talk a lot of gibberish themselves. Doreen Slater shouted down the phone. My father shouted back that he ‘didn’t want a long-term relationship’, he had ‘made that clear from the start’, and that ‘nobody could replace his Pauline’. Doreen Slater went shrieking on and on until my father slammed the phone down. The phone kept ringing until my father took the phone off the hook. He went mad doing housework until 2 AM this morning, and it’s only Tuesday! What will he be like on Saturday morning? The poor fool is convinced that my mother is coming back for good.

I am proud to report that I have been made a school-dinner monitor. My duties are to stand at the side of the pig bin and make sure that my fellow pupils scrape their plates properly.

Bert Baxter rang the school to ask me to call round urgently. Mr Scruton told me off, he said the school telephone was not for the convenience of the pupils. Get stuffed, Scruton, you pop-eyed git!!! Bert was ina terrible state. He had lost his false teeth. He has had them since 1946, they have got sentimental value for him because they used to belong to his father. I looked everywhere for them, but couldn’t find them.

I went to the shops and bought him a tin of soup and a butterscotch Instant Whip. It was all he could manage at the moment. I have promised to go round tomorrow and look again. Sabre was happy for once; he was chewing something in his kennel.

My father is still cleaning the house up. Even Nigel commented on how clean the kitchen floor looked. I wish my father wouldn’t wear the apron though, he looks like a poofter in it.

Found Bert’s teeth in Sabre’s kennel. Bert rinsed them under the tap and put them back in his mouth! This is the most revolting thing I have ever seen.

My father has got bunches of flowers to welcome my mother home. They are all over the house stinking the place out.

Mr Lucas’s house has been sold at last. I saw the estate agent’s minion putting the board up. I hope the new people are respectable. I am reading The Mill on the Floss, by a bloke called George Eliot.

I was woken up at 8.30 by a loud banging on the front door. It was an Electricity Board official. I was amazed to hear that he had come to turn off pur electricity! My father owes PS95.79?. I told the official that we needed electricity for life’s essentials like the television and stereo, but he said that people like us are sapping the country’s strength. He went to the meter cupboard, did something with tools, and the second hand on the kitchen clock stopped. It was dead symbolic. My father came in from fetching the Daily Express. He was whistling and lopking dead cheerful. He even asked the official if he would like a cup of tea! The official said, ‘No thank you’, and hurried up the path and got into his little blue van. My father switched the electric kettle on. I was forced to tell him.

Naturally I got the blame! My father said I should have refused entry. I told him that he should have put all the bill money away each week like grandma does. But he just went berserk. My mother turned up with Lucas! It was just like old times with everybody shouting at once. I took the dog to the shops and bought five boxes of candles. Mr Lucas lent me the money.

When I got back I stood in the hall and heard my mother say, ‘No wonder you can’t pay the bills, George; just look at all these flowers. They must have cost a fortune’. She said it very kindly. Mr Lucas said he would lend my father a ‘ton’ but my father was verydignified and said, ‘All I want from you, Lucas, is my wife’. My mother complimented my father on how nicely he was keeping the house. My father just looked sad and old. I felt dead sorry for him.

I was sent outside while they talked about who was getting custody of me, the arguing went on for ages. In fact until it was time to light the candles.

Lucas spilt candle-wax over his new suede shoes. It was the only cheerful incident in a tragic day.

When my mother and Lucas had gone off in a taxi I went to bed with the dog. I heard my father talking to Doreen Slater on the phone, then the front door slammed and I looked out of my window to see him driving off in the car. The back seat was full of flowers.

Thirdafter Easter. Mother’s Day, USA and Canada. Moon’s First Quarter

Didn’t get up until half-past four this afternoon. I think I am suffering from depression. Nothing happened at all today, apart from a hail storm around six o’clock.

Bert Baxter offered to lend us a paraffin heater. Our gas central heating won’t work without electricity. I thanked him but refused his kind offer. I have read that they are easily knocked over and our dog would no doubt cause a towering inferno.

If it gets out that our electricity has been cut off, I will cut my throat. The shame would be too much to bear.

Had a long talk with Mr Vann the Careers teacher today. He said that if I want to be a vet I will have to do Physics, Chemistry and Biology for O level. He said that Art, Woodwork and Domestic Science won’t do much good.

I am at the Crossroads in my life. The wrong decision now could result in a tragic loss to the veterinary world. I am hopeless at science. I asked Mr Vann which O levels you need to write situation comedy for television. Mr Vann said that you don’t need qualifications at all, you just need to be a moron.

Had an in-depth talk about O levels with my father, he advised me to only do the subjects that I am good at. He said that vets spend half their working life with their hands up cows’ bums, and the other half injecting spoiled fat dogs. So I am rethinking my future career prospects.

I wouldn’t mind being a sponge-diver, but I don’t think there is much call for them in England.

Miss Sproxton told me off because my English essay was covered in drops of candle-wax. I explained that I had caught my overcoat sleeve on the candle whilst doing my homework. Her eyes filled with tears and she said I was ‘a dear brave lad’, and she gave me a merit mark.

After supper of cream crackers and tuna fish, played cards in the candlelight. It was dead good. My father cut the ends off our gloves, we looked like two criminals on the run.

I am reading Hard Times, by Charles Dickens.

My grandmother has just made a surprise visit. She caught us huddled round our new Camping-gaz stove eating cold beans out of a tin. My father was reading Playboy under cover of the candlelight and I was reading Hard Times by my key-ring torch. We were quite contented. My father had just said that it was a ‘good training for when civilization collapses’ when grandma burst in and started having hysterics. She has forced us to go to her house so I am there now sleeping in my dead grandad’s bed. My father is sleeping downstairs on two armchairs pushed together. Grandma has written a Giro cheque for the electricity money, she is furious because she wanted the money for restocking her freezer. She buys two dead cows a year.

Helped grandma with the weekend shopping. She was dead fierce in the grocer’s; she watched the scales like a hawk watching a fieldmouse. Then she pounced and accused the shop assistant of giving her underweight bacon. The shop assistant was dead scared of her and put another slice on.

Our arms were dead tired by the time we’d staggered up the hill carrying big bags of shopping. I don’t know how my grandma does it when she’s alone. I think the council ought to put escalators on hills; they would save money in the long run, old people wouldn’t go about collapsing all over the place. My father paid the electricity bill at the post office today, but it will be at least a week before the computer gives permission for our electricity to be reconnected.

My grandma made us get up early and go to church with her. My father was made to comb his hair andwear one of his dead father’s ties. Grandma held both our arms and looked proud to be with us. The church service was dead boring. The vicar looked like the oldest man alive and spoke in a feeble sort of voice. My father kept standing up when we were supposed to sit down and vice versa. I copied what grandma did, she is always right. My father sang too loudly, everyone looked at him. I shook the vicar’s hand when we were allowed outside. It was like touching dead leaves.

After dinner we listened to my grandma’s records of Al Jolson, then grandma went upstairs for a sleep and my father and me washed up. My father broke a forty-one-year-old milk jug! He had to go out for a drink to recover from the shock. I went to see Bert Baxter but he wasn’t in, so I went to see Blossom instead. She was very pleased to see me. It must be dead boring standing in a field all day long. No wonder she welcomes visitors.

Grandma is not speaking to my father because of the milk jug. Can’t wait to get home where things like milk jugs don’t matter.

Full Moon

My father is in trouble for staying out late last night. Honestly! He is the same age as the milk jug so surely he can come in what time he likes!

Told my father about being menaced today. I was forced to because Barry Kent seriously damaged my school blazer and tore the school badge off. My father is going to speak to Barry Kent tomorrow and he is going to get all the menaces money back off him, so it looks like I could be rich!

Barry Kent denied all knowledge of menacing me and laughed when my father asked him to repay the money. My father went to see his father and had a serious argument and threatened to call the police. I think my father is dead brave. Barry Kent’s father looks like a big ape and has got more hair on the back of his hands than my father has got on his entire head.

The police have said that they can’t do anything without proof so I am going to ask Nigel to give them a sworn statement that he has seen me handing menaces money over.

Barry Kent duffed me up in the cloakroom today. He hung me on one of the coathooks. He called me a ‘coppers’ nark’ and other things too bad to write down. My grandma found out about the menacing (my father didn’t want her to know on account of her diabetes). She listened to it all then she put her hat on, thinned her lips and went out. She was gone one hour and seven minutes, she came in, took her coat off, fluffed her hair out, took PS27.18 from the ariti-mugger belt round her waist. She said; ‘He won’t bother you again, Adrian, but if he does, let me know’. Then she got the tea ready. Pilchards, tomatoes and ginger cake. I bought her a box of diabetic chocolates from the chemist’s as a token of my esteem.

It is all round the school that an old lady of seventy-six frightened Barry Kent and his dad into returning my menaces money. Barry Kent daren’t show his face. His gang are electing a new leader.

Home again, the electricity has been reconnected. All the plants are dead. Red bills on the doormat.

Rogation Sunday

I have decided to paint my room black; it is a colour I like. I can’t live a moment longer with Noddy wallpaper. At my age it is positively indecent to wake up to Big Ears and all the rest of the Toyland idiots running around the walls. My father says I can use any colour I like so long as I buy the paint and do it myself.

I have decided to be a poet. My father said that there isn’t a suitable career structure for poets and no pensions and other boring things, but I am quite decided. He tried to interest me in becoming a computer operator, but I said, ‘I need to put my soul into my work and it is well known that computers haven’t got a soul’. My father said,’ The Americans are working on it’. But I can’t wait that long.

Bought two tins of black vinyl silk-finish paint and a half-inch brush. Started painting as soon as I got home from the DIY centre. Noddy keeps showing through the black paint. Looks like it’ll need two coats. Just my luck!

Moon’s Last Quarter

Now put on two coats of black paint! Noddy still showing through! Black paw-marks over landing and stairs. Can’t get paint off hands. Hairs falling out of brush. Fed up with whole thing. Room looks dark and gloomy. Father hasn’t lifted a finger to help. Black paint everywhere.

Third coat. Slight improvement, only Noddy’s hat showing through now.

Ascension Day

Went over Noddy’s hat with kid’s paintbrush and last of black paint, but bloody hat bells are still showing through!

Went over hat bells with black felt-tip pen, did sixty-nine tonight, only a hundred and twenty-four to go.

Finished last bell at 11.25 PM. Know just how Rembrandt must have felt after painting the Sistine Chapel in Venice.

2 AM. The paint is dry but it must have been faulty because it is all streaky, and here and there you can see Gollywog’s striped trousers and Mr Plod’s nose. Thank God the bloody bells don’t show through! My father has just been in to tell me to go to sleep, he said my room reminded him of a Salvador Dali painting. He said it was a surrealist nightmare, but he is only jealous because he has got yukky roses on his bedroom walls.

Sunday after Ascension

I bought a joss stick from Mr Singh’s shop. I lit it in my room to try and get rid of the paint smell. My father came into my room and threw the joss stick out of the window, he said he ‘wouldn’t have me messing with drugs’! I tried to explain but my father was too angry to listen. I stayed in my room for a few hours but the black walls seemed to be closing in on me so I went to see Bert Baxter. Couldn’t make him hear, so I came home and watched religion on the television. Had tea, did Geography homework, went to bed. Dog won’t stay in room any more; it whimpers to be let out.

Bank Holiday in the Rep. of Ireland

My father had a letter that made his face go white: he has been made redundant from his job! He will be on the dole! How can we live on the pittance that the government will give us? The dog will have to go! It costs thirty-five pence a day for dog food, not counting Winalot. I am now a single-parent child whose father is on the dole! Social Security will be buying my shoes!

I didn’t go to school today, I rang the school secretary and told her that my father is mentally ill and needs looking after. She sounded dead worried and asked if he was violent. I said that he hadn’t shown any signs of being violent, but if he started I would call the doctor. I made my father lots of hot, sweet drinks for shock, he kept going on about electric storage heaters and saying that he would spill the beans to the media.

He rang Doreen Slater up and she came round straightaway, she had a horrible little kid called Maxwell with her. It was quite a shock to see Doreen Slater for the first time. Why my father wanted to have carnal knowledge of her I can’t imagine. She is as thin as a stick insect. She has got no bust and no bum.

She is just straight all the way up and down, including her nose and mouth and hair. She put her arms round my father as soon as she came into the house. Maxwell started to cry, the dog started to bark, so I went back to my black room and counted howmany things were now showing through the paint: a hundred and seventeen!

Doreen left at 1.30 PM to take Maxwell to playschool. She did some shopping for us then cooked a sloppy sort of meal made of spaghetti and cheese. She is a one-parent family; Maxwell was born out of wedlock. She told me about herself when we were washing up. She would be quite nice if she were a bit fatter.

New Moon

Doreen and Maxwell stayed the night. Maxwell was supposed to sleep on the sofa, but he cried so much that he ended up sleeping in the double bed between my father and Doreen, so my father was unable to extend his carnal knowledge of Doreen. He was as sick as a pig, but not as sick as Maxwell was. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Went to school today, couldn’t concentrate, kept thinking about the stick insect. She has got lovely white teeth (straight of course). She made some jam tarts for when I came home from school. She is not stingy with the jam like some women are.

My father is smoking and drinking heavily, but he has been made temporarily impotent according to Doreen. This is something I do not wish to know! Doreen talks to me as if I were another adult instead of her lover’s son aged fourteen and two months and one day.

Doreen answered the phone to my mother first thing this morning. My mother asked to speak to me. She demanded to know what Doreen was doing in the house. I told her that my father was having a breakdown and that Doreen Slater was looking after him. I told her about his redundancy. I said he was drinking heavily, smoking too much and generally letting himself go. Then I went to school. I was feeling rebellious, so I wore red socks. It is strictly forbidden but I don’t care any more.

Miss Sproxton spotted my red socks in assembly! The old bag reported me to pop-eyed Scruton. He had me in his office and gave me a lecture on the dangers of being a nonconformist. Then he sent me home to change into regulation black socks. My father was in bed when I got home; he was having his impotence cured. I watched Play School with Maxwell until he came downstairs. I told him about the sock saga. He instantly turned into a raving loonie! He phone the school and dragged Scruton out of a caretakers’ strike-meeting. He kept shouting down the phone; he said, ‘My wife’s left me, I’ve been made redundant, I’m in charge of an idiot boy,’—Maxwell, I presume—’and you’re victimizing my son because of the colour of his socks!’ Scruton said if I came to school in black socks everything would be forgotten but my father said I would wear whatever colour socks I liked. Scruton said he was anxious to maintain standards. My father said that the England World Cup team in 1966 did not wear black socks, nor did Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953. Scruton seemed to go quiet then. My father put the phone down. He said, ‘Round one to me’.

This could well get into the papers: ‘Black socks row at school’. My mother might read about it and come home.

Oh Joy! Oh Rapture! Pandora is organizing a sock protest! She came round to my house today! Yes! She actually stood on our front porch and told me that she admired the stand I was taking! I would have asked her in, but the house is in a squalid state so I didn’t. She is going round the school with a petition on Monday morning. She said I was a freedom fighter for the rights of the individual. She wants me to go round to her house tomorrow morning. A committee is being set up, and I am the principal speaker! Shewanted to see the red socks but I told her they were in the wash.

Doreen Slater and Maxwell went home today. My grandma is coming round tonight, so all traces of them have got to be wiped out.

Whit Sunday

Grandma found Maxwell’s dummy in my father’s bed. I lied and said that the dog must have brought it in off the street. It was a nasty moment. I am not a good liar, my face goes bright red and my grandma has got eyes like Superman’s, they seem to bore right through you. To divert her I told her about the red-sock row, but she said rules were made to be kept.

Pandora and the committee were waiting for me in the big lounge of her house. Pandora is Chairperson, Nigel is Secretary and Pandora’s friend Claire Neilson is Treasurer. Craig Thomas and his brother Brett are just ordinary supporters. I am not allowed to hold high office because I am the victim.

Pandora’s parents were in the wooden kitchen doing The Sunday Times crossword. They seem to get on quite well together.

They brought a tray of coffee and health biscuits into the lounge for us. Pandora introduced me to her parents. They said they admired the stand that I was taking. They were both members of the Labour Party and they went on about the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Theynoasked me if the fact that I had chosen to protest in red socks had any significance. I lied and said I had chosen red because it was a symbol of revolution, then I blushed revolutionary red. I am turning into quite a liar recently.

Pandora’s mother said I could call her Tania. Surely that is a Russian name? Her father said I could call him Ivan. He is very nice, he gave me a book to read; it is called The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. I haven’t looked through it yet but I’m quite interested in stamp collecting so I will read it tonight.

Washed red socks, put them on radiator to dry ready for the morning.

Woke up, dressed, put red socks on before underpants or vest. Father stood at the door and wished me luck. Felt like a hero. Met Pandora and rest of committee at corner of our road; all of us were wearing red socks. Pandora’s were lurex. She has certainly got guts! We sang ‘We shall not be moved’ all the way to school. I felt a bit scared when we went through the gates but Pandora rallied us with shouts of encouragement.

Pop-eyed Scruton must have been tipped off because he was waiting in the fourth-year cloakroom. He was standing very still with his arms folded, staring with poached egg eyes. He didn’t speak, he just nodded upstairs. All the red socks trooped upstairs. My heart was beating dead loud. He went silently into his officeand sat at his desk and started tapping his teeth with a school pen. We just stood there.

He smiled in a horrible way then rang the bell on his desk. His secretary came in, he said, ‘Sit down and take a letter, Mrs Claricoates’. The letter was to our parents, it said:

Pandora started to say something about her O levels suffering but Scruton roared at her to shut up! Even Mrs Claricoates jumped. Scruton said that we could wait until the letters had been typed, duplicated and signed and then we had better ‘hot foot it out of school’. We waited outside Scruton’s office. Pandora was crying (because she was angry and frustrated, she said). I put my arm round her a bit. Mrs Claricoates gave us our letters. She smiled very kindly, it can’t be very easy working for a despot.

We went round to Pandora’s house but it was locked, so I said everyone could come round to my house. It was quite tidy for once, apart from the dog hairs. My father raged about the letter. He is supposed to be a Conservative but he is not being very conservative at the moment.

I can’t help wishing that I had worn black socks on Friday.

Moon’s First Quarter

My father saw Scruton today and told him that if he didn’t allow me back to school in whatever colour socks I like he would protest to his MR Mr Scruton asked my father who his MP was. My father didn’t know.

Pandora and I are in love! It is official! She told Claire Neilson, who told Nigel, who told me.

I told Nigel to tell Claire to tell Pandora that I return her love. I am over the moon with joy and rapture. I can overlook the fact that Pandora smokes five Benson and Hedges a day and has her own lighter. When you are in love such things cease to matter.

Spent all day with my love. Can’t write much, my hands are still trembling.

Had a message from the school to say that Bert Baxter wanted to see me urgently. Went round with Pandora (we are inseparable). Bert is ill. He looked awful, Pandora made his bed up with clean sheets (she didn’t seem to mind the smell) and I phoned the doctor. I described Bert’s symptoms. Funny breathing, white face, sweating.

We tried to clean the bedroom up a bit, Bert kept saying stupid things that didn’t make sense. Pandora said that he was delirious. She held his hand until the doctor came. Dr Patel was quite kind, he said that Bert needed oxygen. He gave me a number to ring for an ambulance, it seemed to take ages to come. I thought about how I had neglected Bert lately and I felt a real rat fink. The ambulancemen took Bert downstairs on a stretcher. They got stuck on the corner of the stairs and knocked a lot of empty beetroot jars over. Pandora and me cleared a path through the rubbish in the downstairs hall and they steered him through. He was wrapped in a big, fluffy red blanket before he went outside. Then they shut him up in the ambulance and he was sirened away. I had a big lump in mythroat and my eyes were watering. It must have been caused by the dust.

Bert’s house is very dusty.

Bert is in intensive care, he can’t have visitors. I ring up every four hours to find out how he is. I pretend to be a relative. The nurses say things like ‘He is stable’.

Sabre is staying with us. Our dog is staying at grandma’s because it is scared of alsatians.

I hope Bert doesn’t die. Apart from liking him, I have got nothing to wear to a funeral.

Still madly in love with P.

Trinity Sunday

Went to see Bert, he has got tubes all over him. I took him a jar of beetroot for when he is better. The nurse put it in his locker. I took some ‘get well’ cards, one from Pandora and me, one from my grandma, one from my father and one from Sabre. Bert was asleep so I didn’t stay long.

The Red Sock Committee has voted to give way to Scruton for the time being. We wear red socks underneath our black socks. This makes our shoes tight but we don’t mind because a principle is involved.

Bert has made a slight improvement. He is awake more. I’ll go round and see him tomorrow.

Bert has only got a few tubes left inside him now. He was awake when I went into his room. He didn’t recognize me at first because I was wearing a mask and gown. He thought I was a doctor. He said, ‘Get these bkedin’ tubes out of my private parts, I ain’t an underground system’. Then he saw it was me and asked how Sabre was. We had a long talk about Sabre’s behaviour problems, then the nurse came in and told me I had to go. Bert asked me to tell his daughters that he is on his death bed; he gave me half-a-crown for the phone calls! Two of them live in Australia! He said the numbers are written down in the back of his old army pay-book.

My father says that half-a-crown is roughly worth twelve and a half pence. I am keeping the half-a-crown. It has a nice chunky feel about it and it will no doubt be a collector’s item one day.

Full Moon

Pandora and me searched Bert’s house looking for his army pay-book. Pandora found a pile of brown and cream postcards that were very indecent. They were signed ‘ovec tout monamour cheri, Lola’. I felt a bit funny after looking through them, so did Pandora. We exchanged our first really passionate kiss. I felt like doing a French kiss but I don’t know how it’s done so I had to settle for an ordinary English one. No sign of the pay-book.

Bert is now tubeless. He is being moved into an ordinary ward tomorrow. I told him about not finding the army pay-book, he said it doesn’t matter now he knows he’s not dying.

Pandora came with me tonight. She got on well with Bert; they talked about Blossom. Bert passed on a few tips about grooming ponies. Then Pandora went out to arrange the flowers she’d brought and Bert asked me if I’d had my ‘leg over’ yet. Sometimes he is just a dirty old man who doesn’t deserve visitors.

Bert is on a big ward full of men with broken legs and bandaged chests. He looks a lot better now that he has got his teeth in. Some of the men whistled at Pandora when she walked down the ward. I wish she wasn’t taller than me. Bert is in trouble with the ward sister for getting beetroot juice on the hospital sheets. He is supposed to be on a fluid diet.

I hope Bert can come home soon. My father is fed up with Sabre and my grandma is sick to death of our dog.

Bert’s consultant has told him to give up smoking but Bert says at eighty-nine years old it is hardly worth it. He has asked me to buy him twenty Woodbines and a box of matches. What shall I do?

First after Trinity. Father’s Day

Couldn’t sleep last night for worrying about the Woodbines. After much heart-searching decided not to grant Bert’s wish. Then went to the hospital to find that Bert had bought his stinking fags from the hospital trolley!

Just measured my thing. It has grown one centimetre. I might be needing it soon.

Woke up with sore throat, couldn’t swallow, tried to shout downstairs but could only manage a croak. Tried to attract my father’s attention by banging on my bedroom floor with school shoe but my father shouted, ‘Stop that bloody banging’. Eventually I sent the dog downstairs with a message tucked inside its collar. I waited for ages, then I heard the dog barking in the street. It hadn’t delivered the message! I was close to despair. I had to get up to go to the toilet but how I got there I don’t know; it is all a hazy blur. I stood at the top of the stairs and croaked as loud as I could but my father had his Alma Cogan records on so I was forced to go downstairs and tell him I was ill. My father looked in my mouth and said, ‘Christ Almighty, Adrian, your tonsils look like Polaris missiles! What are you doing down here? Get back into bed at once, you fool’. He took my temperature: it was 112deg Fahrenheit. By rights I should be dead.

It is now five minutes to midnight, the doctor is coming in the morning. I just pray that I can last out until then. Should the worst happen, I hereby leave all my worldly goods to Pandora Braithwaite of 69 Elm Tree Avenue. I think I am of sound mind. It is very hard to tell when you’ve got a temperature of 112deg Fahrenheit.

I have got tonsillitis. It is official. I am on antibiotics. Pandora sits by my bed reading aloud to me. I wish she wouldn’t, every word is like a rock dropping on my head.

A ‘get well’ card from my mother. Inside a five-pound note. I asked my father to spend it on five bottles of Lucozade.

Moon’s Last Quarter

I have delirious dreams about Lady Diana Spencer; I hope I am better in time for the wedding. Temperature is still 112deg Fahrenheit.

My father can’t cope with Sabre, so Pandora has taken him home with her. (Sabre, not my father.)

Doctor said our thermometer is faulty. I feel slightly better.

Got up for twenty minutes today. Watched Play School; it was Carol Leader’s turn, she is my favourite presenter.

Pandora brought me a ‘get well’ card. She made it herself with felt-tip pens. She signed it: ‘Forever yours, Pan.’

I wanted to kiss her but my lips are still cracked.

Why hasn’t my mother been to see me?

Second after Trinity

My mother has just left to catch the train for Sheffield. I am worn out with all the emotion. I am having a relapse.

Pandora went to see Bert Baxter. She said the nurses are getting fed up with him because he won’t stay in bed or do anything he is told to do. He is being discharged on Thursday.

I long for the peace and quiet of a hospital ward. I would be a perfect patient.

Pandora’s father has put Sabre into kennels, it iscosting him three pounds a day, but Pandora’s father says that it is worth every penny.

I am entering a period of convalescence. I will have to take things very easily if I am to regain my former vigour.