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

Fall 1981

7.30 AM. Just woke up to find chin covered in spots! How can I face Pandora?

10 PM. Avoided Pandora all day but she caught up with me in school dinners. I tried to eat with my hand over my chin but it proved very difficult. I confessed to her during the yoghurt. She accepted my disability very calmly. She said it made no difference to our love but I couldn’t help thinking that her kisses lacked their usual passion as we were saying goodnight after youth club.

6 PM. I am very unhappy and have once again turned to great literature for solace. It’s no surprise to me that intellectuals commit suicide, go mad or die from drink. We feel things more than other people. We know the world is rotten and that chins are ruined by spots. I am reading Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom, by Andrei D. Sakharov.

It is ‘an inestimably important document’ according to the cover.

11.30 PM. Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom is inestimably boring, according to me, Adrian Mole.

I disagree with Sakharov’s analysis of the causes of the revivalism of Stalinism. We are doing Russia at school so I speak from knowledge.

Pandora is cooling off. She didn’t turn up at Bert’s today. I had to do his cleaning on my own.

Went to Sainsbury’s as usual in the afternoon; they are selling Christmas cakes. I feel that my life is slipping away.

I am reading Wuthering Heights. It is brilliant. If I could get Pandora up somewhere high, I’m sure we could regain our old passion.

Sixteenth after Trinity

Persuaded Pandora to put her name down for the youth club’s mountain survival course in Derbyshire. Rick Lemon is sending an equipment list and permission form to our parents. Or in my case to my parent. I have only got two weeks to reach peak condition. I try to do fifty press-ups a night. I try to do them but fail. Seventeen is my best so far.

Bert has been kidnapped by Social Services! They are keeping him at the Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home. I have been to see him. He shares a room with an old man called Thomas Bell. They have both got their names on their ashtrays. Sabre has got a place in the RSPCA hostel.

Our dog has gone missing. It is a portent of doom.

Moon’s First Quarter

Pandora and I went to visit Bert, but it was a waste of time really.

His room had a strange effect on us, it made us not want to talk about anything. Bert says he is going to sue Social Services, for depriving him of his rights. He says he has to go to bed at nine-thirty! It is not fair because he is used to staying up until after The Epilogue. We passed the lounge on our way out. The old people sat around the walls in high chairs. The television was on but nobody was watching it, the old people looked as though they were thinking.

Social Services have painted the walls orange to try to cheer the old people up. It doesn’t seem to have worked.

Thomas Bell died in the night. Bert says that nobody leaves the home alive. Bert is the oldest inmate. He is dead worried about dying. He is now the only man in the entire home. Pandora says that women outlive men. She says it is a sort of bonus because women have to suffer more earlier on.

Our dog is still missing. I have put an advert in Mr Cherry’s shop.

Bert is still alive so I took Sabre to visit him today. We propped Bert up at the window of his room and he waved to Sabre who was on the lawn outside. Dogs are not allowed inside the home. It is another of their poxy rules.

Our dog is still missing, now presumed dead.

The matron of the home says that if Bert is dead good he can come out for the day on Sunday. He is coming to our house for Sunday dinner and tea. The phone bill has come. I have hidden it under my mattress. It is for PS289.19p.

I am really worried about our dog. It has vanished off the face of our suburb. Nigel, Pandora and I have walked the cul-de-sacs looking for it.

Another worry is my father. He lies in bed until noon, then fries a mess in a pan, eats it, opens a can or bottle, then sits and watches After Noon Plus. He is making no attempt to find another job. He needs a bath, a haircut and a shave. It is Parents’ Night at school next Tuesday. I have taken his best suit to the cleaner’s.

I bought a book from W.H. Smith’s, it was only five pence. It was written by an unsuccessful writer called Drake Fairclough; it is called Cordon Bleu for the Elderly. Bert is coming tomorrow. Pandora’s father has ordered their phone to be taken out. He has found out about the reverse-charge calls.

Seventeenth after Trinity

BERT’S VISIT

I got up early this morning and cleared the furniture out of the hall so that Bert’s wheelchair had room for manoeuvre. I made my father a cup of coffee and took it up to him in bed, then I started cooking geriatric coq au vin. I left it on to boil whilst I went back upstairs to reawaken my father. When I got downstairs I knew that I’d made a mess of the coq au vin. All the vinegar had boiled away and left burnt chicken. I was most disappointed because I was thinking of making my debut as a cook today. I wanted to impress Pandora with my multi talents, I think she is getting a bit bored with my conversation about great literature and the Norwegian leather industry.

Bert insisted on bringing a big trunk with him when Pandora’s father picked him up at the home. So what with that and his wheelchair and Bert sprawling all over the back seat I was forced to crouch in the hatch of the hatchback car. It took ages to get Bert out of the car and into his wheelchair. Almost as long as it took me to get my father out of bed.

Pandora’s father stayed for a quick drink, then a pre-lunch one, then a chaser, then one for the road. Then he had one to prove that he never got drunk during the day. Pandora’s lips started to go thin (women must teach young girls to do this). Then she confiscated her father’s car keys and phoned her mother to come and collect the car. I had to endure watching my father do his imitation of some bloke called Frank Sinatra singing ‘One for my baby and one more for the road’. Pandora’s father pretended to be the bartender with our Tupperware custard jug. They were both drunkenly singing when Pandora’s mother came in. Her lips were so thin they had practically disappeared. She ordered Pandora and Pandora’s father out into the car, then she said that it was about time my father pulled himself together. She said she knew my father felt humiliated, alienated and bitterbecause he was unemployed, but that he was setting a bad example to an impressionable adolescent. Then she drove off at 10 mph. Pandora blew me a kiss through the rear windscreen.

I object strongly! Nothing my father does impresses me any more. Had Vesta curry and rice for dinner, during which Mrs Singh came round and talked Hindi to Bert. She seemed to find our curry very funny, she kept pointing to it and laughing. Sometimes I think I am the only person in the world who still has manners.

Bert told my father that he is convinced the matron is trying to poison him (Bert, not my father), but my father said that all institutional food is the same. When it was time to go home, Bert started crying. He said, ‘Don’t make me go back there’, and other sad things. My father explained that we didn’t have the skill to look after him at our house, so Bert was wheeled to the car (although he kept putting the brake of the wheel-chair on). He asked us to keep his trunk at our house. He said it was to be opened on his death. The key is round his neck on a bit of string.

Dog is still AWOL.

Columbus Day, USA. Thanksgiving Day, Canada

Went to the ‘off-the-streets’ youth club tonight. Rick Lemon gave us a lecture on survival techniques. He said that the best thing to do if you are suffering from hypothermia is to climb into a plastic bag with a naked woman. Pandora made a formal objection, and Rick Lemon’s girlfriend, Tit, got up and walked away. It is just my luck to be on the mountain with a frigid woman! RIP Dog.

Full Moon

Had an angry phone call from my grandma to ask when we were coming round to collect the dog! The stupid dog turned up at her house on the 6th October. I went round immediately and was shocked at the dog’s condition: it looks old and grey. In human years it is eleven years old. In dog years it should be drawing a pension. I have never seen a dog age so quickly. Those eight days with grandma must have been hell. My grandma is very strict.

I have nearly got used to the old ladies in the home now. I call in every afternoon on my way home from school. They seem pleased to see me. One of them is knitting me a balaclava for my survival weekend. She is called Queenie.

Did thirty-six and a half press-ups tonight.

Went to the youth club to try yukky, lousy old walking boots for size. Rick Lemon has hired them from a mountaineering shop. To make mine fit I have to wear three pairs of socks. Six of us are going. Rick is leading us.

He is unqualified but experienced in surviving bad conditions. He was born and brought up in Kirby New Town. I went to Sainsbury’s and bought my survival food. We have got to carry our food and equipment in our rucksacks, so weight is an important factor. I bought:

• 1 box cornflakes

• 2 pints milk

• box tea-bags

• tin rhubarb

• 5 lb spuds

• ½ lb lard

• ½ lb butter

• 2 loaves bread

• 1 lb cheese

• 2 packets biscuits

• 2 lb sugar

• toilet roll

• washing-up liquid

• 2 tins tuna

• 1 tin stewed steak

• 1 tin carrots

I could hardly carry my survival food home from Salisbury’s, so how I will manage it on a march across the hills I don’t know! My father suggested leaving something out. So I have not packed the toilet roll or cornflakes.

Have decided not to take my diary to Derbyshire. I cannot guarantee that it will not be read by hostile eyes. Besides it won’t fit into my rucksack.

Must finish now, the mini-bus is outside papping its hooter.

Eighteenth after Trinity

8 PM. It is wonderful to be back in civilization!

I have lived like an ignoble savage for the past two days! Sleeping on rough ground with only a sleeping-bag between me and the elements! Trying to cook chips over a tiny primus stove! Trudging through streams in my torturous boots! Having to perform my natural functions out in the open! Wiping my bum on leaves! Not being able to have a bath or clean my teeth! No television or radio or anything! Rick Lemon wouldn’t even let us sit in the mini-bus when it started to rain! He said we ought to make a shelter out of nature’s bounty! Pandora found a plastic animal-food sack so we took it in turns sitting under it.

How I survived I don’t know. My eggs broke, my bread got saturated, my biscuits got crushed and nobody had a tin-opener. I nearly starved. Thank God cheese doesn’t leak, break, soak up water or come in a tin. I was glad when we were found and taken to the Mountain Rescue headquarters. Rick Lemon was told off for not having a map or compass. Rick said he knew the hills like the back of his hand. The chief mountain rescuer said that Rick must have been wearing gloves because we were seven miles from our mini-bus and heading in the wrong direction!

I shall now sleep in a bed for the first time in two days. No school tomorrow because of blisters.

I have got to rest my feet for two days. Doctor Gray was very unpleasant: he said that he resented being called out for a few foot blisters.

I was very surprised at his attitude. It is a well-known fact that mountaineers get gangrene of the toes.

Moon’s Last Quarter

Here I am lying in bed unable to walk because of excruciating pain and my father carries out his parental responsibilities by throwing a few bacon sandwiches at me three times a day!

If my mother doesn’t come home soon I will end up deprived and maladjusted. I am already neglected.

Hobbled to school. All the teachers were wearing their best clothes because it is Parents’ Evening tonight. My father got cleaned up and put his best suit on. He looked OK, thank God! Nobody could tell he was unemployed. My teachers all told him that I was a credit to the school.

Barry Kent’s father was looking as sick as a pig. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Limped half-way to school. Dog followed me. Limped back home. Shut dog in coal shed. Limped all the way to school. Fifteen minutes late. Mr Scruton said it was not setting a good example for the late prefect to be late. It is all right for him to talk! He can ride to schoolin a Ford Cortina and then all he has to do is be in charge of a school. I have got a lot of problems and no car.

I have had a letter from the hospital to say that I have got to have my tonsils out on Tuesday the twenty-seventh. This has come as a complete shock to me! My father says I have been on the waiting list since I was five years old! So I have had to endure an annual bout of tonsillitis for nine years just because the National Health Service is starved of finance!

Why can’t midwives remove babies’ tonsils at birth? It would save a lot of trouble, pain and money.

United Nations’ Day

Went shopping for new dressing gown, slippers, pyjamas, and toiletries. My father was moaning as usual. He said he didn’t see why I couldn’t just wear my old night-clothes in hospital. I told him that I would look ridiculous in my Peter Pan dressing gown and Winnie the Pooh pyjamas. Apart from the yukky design they are too small and covered in patches. He said that when he was a lad he slept in a nightshirt made out of two coal sacks stitched together. I phoned my grandma to check this suspicious statement and myfather was forced to repeat it down the phone. My grandma said that they were not coal sacks but flour sacks, so I now know that my father is a pathological liar!

My hospital rig came to fifty-four pounds nineteen; this is before fruit, chocolates and Lucozade. Pandora said I looked like Noel Coward in my new bri-nylon dressing gown. I said, ‘Thanks, Pandora’, although to be honest I don’t know who Noel Coward is or was. I hope he’s not a mass murderer or anything.

Nineteenth after Trinity. British Summer Time ends

Phoned my mother to tell her about my coming surgical ordeal. No reply. This is typical. She would sooner be out having fun with creep Lucas than comforting her only child!

Grandma rang and said that she knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who had their tonsils out and bled to death on the operating theatre table. She ended up by saying, ‘Don’t worry Adrian, I’m sure everything will be all right for you’.

Thanks a million, grandma!

Bank Holiday in the Rep. of Ireland

11 AM. I did my packing, then went to see Bert. He is sinking fast so it could be the last time we see each other. Bert also knows somebody who bled to death after a tonsils’ extraction. I hope it’s the same person.

Said goodbye to Pandora: she wept very touchingly. She brought me one of Blossom’s old horseshoes to take into hospital. She said a friend of her father had a cyst removed and didn’t come out of the anaesthetic. I’m being admitted to Ivy Swallow Ward at 2 PM Greenwich Mean Time.

6 PM. My father has just left my bedside after four hours of waiting around for permission to leave. I have had every part of my body examined. Liquid substances have been taken from me, I have been weighed and bathed, measured and prodded and poked, but nobody has looked in my throat!

I have put our family medical dictionary on my bedside table so that the doctors see it and are impressed. I can’t tell what the rest of the ward is like yet because the nurses have forgotten to remove the screens. A notice has been hung over my bed; it says ‘Liquids Only’. I am dead scared.

10 PM. I am starving! A black nurse has taken all my food and drink away. I am supposed to go to sleep but it is like bedlam in here. Old men keep falling out of bed.

Midnight. There is a new notice over my bed; it says ‘Nil by Mouth’. I am dying of thirst! I would give my right arm for a can of Low Cal.

New Moon

4 AM. I am dehydrated!

6 AM. Just been woken up! Operation is not until 10 AM. So why couldn’t they let me sleep? I have got to have another bath. I told them that it is the inside of my body that is being operated on, but they don’t listen.

7 AM. A Chinese nurse stayed in the bathroom to make sure I didn’t drink any water. She kept staring so I had to put a hospital sponge over my thing.

7.30 AM. I am dressed like a lunatic, ready for the operation. I have had an injection, it is supposed to make you sleepy but I’m wide awake listening to a row about a patient’s lost notes.

8 AM. My mouth is completely dry, I shall go mad from thirst, I haven’t had a drink since nine forty-five last night. I feel very floaty, the cracks in the ceiling are very interesting. I have got to find somewhere to hide my diary. I don’t want prying Nosy Parkers reading it.

8.30 AM. My mother is at my bedside! She is going to put my diary in her organizer-handbag. She has promised (on the dog’s life) not to read it.

8.45 AM. My mother is in the hospital grounds smoking a cigarette. She is looking old and haggard. All the debauchery is catching up with her.

9 AM. The operating trolley keeps coming into the ward and dumping unconscious men into beds. The trolley-pushers are wearing green overalls and Wellingtons. There must be loads of blood on the floor of the theatre!

9.15 AM. The trolley is coming in my direction!

Midnight. I am devoid of tonsils. I am in a torrent of pain. It took my mother thirteen minutes to find my diary. She doesn’t know her way round her organizer-handbag yet. It has got seventeen compartments.

I am unable to speak. Even groaning causes agony.

I have been moved to a side ward. My suffering is too much for the other patients to bear. Had a ‘get well’ card from Bert and Sabre.

I was able to sip a little of grandma’s broth today. She brought it in her Thermos flask. My father broughtme a family pack of crisps; he might just as well have brought me razor blades!

Pandora came at visiting time, I had little to whisper to her. Conversation palls when one is hovering between life and death.

Hallowe’en

3 AM. I have been forced to complain about the noise coming from the nurses’ home. I am sick of listening to (and watching) drunken nurses and off-duty policemen cavorting around the grounds dressed as witches and wizards. Nurse Boldry was doing something particularly unpleasant with a pumpkin. I am joining BUPA as soon as they’ll have me.

Twentieth after Trinity

The nurses have been very cold towards me. They say that I am taking up a bed that could be used by an ill person! I have got to eat a bowl of cornflakes before they let me out. So far I have refused: I cannot bear the pain.

Nurse Boldry forced a spoon of cornflakes down my damaged throat, then, before I could digest it, she started stripping my bed. She offered to pay for a taxi, but I told her that I would wait for my father to come and carry me out to the car.

Election Day, USA

I am in my own bed. Pandora is a tower of strength. She and I communicate without words. My voice has been damaged by the operation.

Today I croaked my first words for a week. I said, ‘Dad, phone mum and tell her that I am over the worst’. My father was overcome with relief and emotion. His laughter was close to hysteria.

Moon’s First Quarter

Dr Gray says my malfunctioning voice is ‘only adolescent wobble’. He is always in a bad mood!

He expected me to stagger to his surgery and queue in a germ-filled waiting room! He said I ought to be outside with other lads of my age building a bonfire. I told him that I was too old for such paganistic rituals. He said he was forty-seven and he still enjoyed a good burn-up.

Forty-seven! It explains a lot, he should be pensioned off.

My father is taking me to an organized bonfire party tomorrow (providing I am up to it, of course). It is being held to raise funds for Marriage Guidance Councillors’ expenses.

Pandora’s mother is cooking the food and Pandora’s father is in charge of the fireworks. My father is going to be in charge of lighting the bonfire so I’m going to stand at least a hundred metres away. I have seen him singe his eyebrows many times.

Last night some irresponsible people down our street had bonfire parties in their own back gardens!

Yes!

In spite of being warned of all the dangers by the radio, television, Blue Peter and the media they went selfishly ahead. There were no accidents, but surely this was only luck.

The Marriage Guidance Council bonfire was massive. It was a good community effort. Mr Cherry donated hundreds of copies of a magazine called . Now! He said they had been cluttering up the back room of his shop for over a year.

Pandora burnt her collection of Jackie comics, she said that they ‘don’t bear feminist analysis’ and she ‘wouldn’t like them to get into young girls’ hands’.

Mr Singh and all the little Singhs brought along Indian firecrackers. They are much louder than English ones. I was glad our dog was locked in the coal shed with cotton wool in its ears.

Nobody was seriously burnt, but I think it was a mistake to hand out fireworks at the same time the food was being served.

I burnt the red phone bill that came this morning.

Twenty-first after Trinity. Remembrance Sunday

Our street is full of acrid smoke, I went to see the bonfire, the Now! magazines are still in the hot ashes, they are refusing to burn properly. (Our red phone bill has disappeared, thank God!)

Mr Cherry is going to have to dig a big pit and pourquicklime over the Now! magazines before they choke the whole suburb. Went to see Bert. He was out with Queenie.

Back to school. The dog is at the vet’s having the cotton wool surgically removed.

My nipples have swollen! I am turning into a girl!!!

Veterans’ Day, USA. Remembrance Day, Canada. Full Moon

Dr Gray has struck me off his list! He said nipple-swelling is common in boys. Usually they get it when they are twelve and a half. Dr Gray said I was emotionally and physically immature! How can I be immature? I have had a rejection letter from the BBC! And how could I have walked to the surgery with swollen nipples?

I don’t know why he calls it a surgery anyway; he never does any surgery in it.

Told Mr Jones I couldn’t do PE because of swollen nipples. He was extremely crude in his attitude. I don’t know what they teach them at teacher-training college.

Pandora and I had a frank talk about our relationship tonight. She doesn’t want to marry me in two years’ time!

She wants to have a career instead!

Naturally I am devastated by this blow. I told her I wouldn’t mind her having a little job in a cake shop or something after our wedding, but she said she intended to go to university and that the only time she would enter a cake shop would be to buy a large crusty.

Harsh words were exchanged between us. (Hers were harsher than mine.)

Charred Now! magazines are blowing all over our cul-de-sac. They seem to have special powers of survival. The council have sent a special cleaning squad to try and trap them all.

The dog’s ears are now clear of cotton wool. It only pretends not to hear.

Went to see B.B. but he is out with Queenie. She is pushing him around the leisure centre.

Twenty-second after Trinity

Read A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute, it is dead brill. I wish I had an intellectual friend whom I could discuss great literature with. My father thinks A Town Like Alice was written by Lewis Carroll.

I came home from school with a headache. All the noise and shouting and bullying is getting me down! Surely teachers should be better behaved!

My father is a serious worry to me. Even the continuing news of Princess Diana’s conception does not cheer him up.

Grandma has already knitted three pairs of bootees and sent them off care of Buckingham Palace. She is a true patriot.

Moon’s Last Quarter

The trees are stark naked. Their autumnal clothes Litter the pavements. Council sweepers apply fire Thus creating municipal pyres. I, Adrian Mole, Kick them And burn my Hush Puppies.

I have copied it out carefully and sent it to John Tydeman at the BBC. He strikes me as a man who might like poems about autumn leaves.

I have got to get something broadcast or printed soon else Pandora will lose all respect for me.

Pandora has suggested I start a literary magazine using the school duplicator. I wrote the first edition during dinner-time. It is called The Voice of Youth.

Pandora looked at The Voice of Youth. She suggested that instead of writing the whole magazine myself, I invite contributions from other talented scribblers.

She said she would do a piece about window-box gardening. Claire Neilson has submitted a punk poem, it is very avant garde, but I am not afraid to break new ground.

She wants it put in under an assumed name, her father is a Conservative councillor.

Nigel has written a short piece about racing-bike maintenance. It is very boring but I can’t tell him because he is my best friend.

We go to press on Wednesday. Pandora is typing the stencils over the weekend.

Here is my first editorial:

We are going to charge twenty-five pence a copy.

Pandora’s father has stolen a box of stencils from his office. As I write, Pandora is typing the first pages of The Voice of Youth, I am half-way through writing an expose about Barry Kent. It is called ‘Barry Kent: The Truth!’ He hasn’t dared to lay a finger on me since grandma’s dramatic intervention, so I know I shall be safe.

Too busy to go and see Bert, I will go tomorrow.

Last after Trinity

Finished the expose on Barry Kent. It will rock the school to its foundations. I have mentioned Barry Kent’s sexual perversions—all about his disgusting practice of showing his thing for five pence a look.

Had a Christmas card from grandma, and a letter from the post office to say that they are cutting the phone off!

Forgot to call round and see Bert. Pandora and I were too busy putting the paper to bed. How I wish I was putting Pandora to bed.

2 AM. What am I going to do about the phone bill?

Nigel has just gone off in a sulk. He objected to the editing I did on his article. I tried to point out to him that one thousand five hundred words on bicycle spokes was pure self-indulgence, but he wouldn’t listen. He has withdrawn his article. Thank God! Two pages less to fold.

The Voice of Youth hits the classrooms tomorrow.

Must go and see Bert tomorrow.

We have been hit by a wildcat strike! Mrs Claricoates, the school secretary, has refused to handle The Voice of Youth. She says there is nothing in her job description to say she has to mess about with school magazines. The editorial team offered to duplicate copies ourselves, but Mrs Claricoates says that she alone knows how to ‘work the wretched thing’. I am in despair. A whole six hours’ work wasted!

Thanksgiving Day, USA. New Moon

Pandora’s father is photocopying The Voice of Youth on his office machine. He didn’t want to, but Pandora sulked in her room and refused to eat until he agreed.

Five hundred copies of The Voice of Youth were on sale in the dinner hall today.

Five hundred copies were locked in the games cupboard by the end of the afternoon. Not one copy was sold! Not one! My fellow pupils are nothing but Philistines and Morons!

We are dropping the price to twenty pence on Monday.

My mother phoned and wanted to speak to my father. I told her that he is on a fishing weekend with the Society of Redundant Electric Storage Heater Salesmen.

A postcard from the post office to say that unless my father phones the post office before five-thirty our phone will be disconnected.

A telegram! Addressed to me! The BBC? No, from my mother:

What does she mean ‘Stop coming home’? How can I ‘stop coming home’? I live here.

The phone has been cut off! I am considering running away from home.

Advent Sunday

My mother has just turned up with no warning! She had all her suitcases with her. She has thrown herself on the mercy of my father. My father has just thrown himself on the body of my mother. I tactfully withdrew to my bedroom where I am now trying to work out how I feel about my mother’s return. On the whole I am over the moon, but I’m dreading her looking around our squalid house. She will go mad when she finds out that I have lent Pandora her fox-fur coat.

St Andrew’s Day

My mother and father were still in bed when I left for school.

Sold one copy of The Voice of Youth, to Barry Kent. He wanted to discover the truth about himself. He is a slow reader so it will probably take him until Friday to find out. We are going to try dropping the price to fifteen pence to try to stimulate demand. There are now four hundred and ninety-nine copies to be sold!

My mother and father are in bed again and it’s only 9 PM!

The dog is very pleased my mother is back. It has been going about smiling all day.

I called the post office and pretended to be my father. I spoke in a very deep voice and told a lot of lies. I said that I, George Mole, had been in a lunatic asylum for three months and I needed the phone to ring up the Samaritans, etc. The woman sounded dead horrible, she said she was fed up with hearing lame excuses from irresponsible non-payers. She said thatthe phone would only be reconnected when PS289.19 had been paid, plus PS40 reconnection fee, plus a deposit of PS40!

Three hundred and sixty-nine pounds! When my parents get out of bed and discover the lack of dialling tone, I will be done for!

My father tried to phone up after a job today! He has gone berserk.

My mother cleaned my bedroom, she turned up my mattress and found the Big and Bouncys and the blue phone bill.

I sat on the kitchen stool while they interrogated me and shouted abuse. My father wanted to give me a ‘to-within-an-inch-of-his-life thrashing’, but my mother stopped him. She said, ‘It would be more of a punishment to make the tight-fisted sod cough up some of his building-society savings’. So that is what I’m being forced to do.

Now I will never be an owner-occupier.

Drew out two hundred pounds from my building-society account. I don’t mind admitting that there were tears in my eyes. It will take another fourteen years before I can replace it.

Moon’s First Quarter

I am suffering from severe depression. It is all Pandora’s father’s fault. He should have had a holiday in England.

Had a letter from grandma to ask why I hadn’t sent her a Christmas card yet.

Second in Advent

I am still being treated like a criminal. My mother and father are not speaking to me, and I’m not allowed out. I might just as well turn to delinquency.

Stole a Kevin Keegan key ring from Mr Cherry’s shop. It will do for Nigel’s Christmas present.

I am dead worried about the key ring; we did Morals and Ethics at school today.

Can’t sleep for worrying about the key ring. The papers are full of stories about old ladies getting done for shoplifting. I tried to overpay Mr Cherry for my Mars bar, but he called me back and gave me my change.

Had a dream about a jailer locking me in a prison cell. The big iron key was attached to the Kevin Keegan key ring.

The lousy, stinking, sodding phone is reconnected!

Full Moon

Phoned the Samaritans and confessed my crime. The man said, ‘Put it back then, lad’. I will do it tomorrow.

Mr Cherry caught me in the act of replacing the key ring. He has written a letter to my parents. I might as well do myself in.

Third in Advent

Thank God there is no post on Sundays.

My mother and father had a festive time decorating the Christmas tree. I watched them hanging the baubles with a heavy heart.

I am reading Crime and Punishment. It is the most true book I have ever read.

Got up at 5 AM to intercept the postman. Took the dog for a walk in the drizzle. (It wanted to stay asleep, but I wouldn’t let it.) The dog moaned and complained all the way round the block so in the end I let it climb back into its cardboard box. I wish I was a dog; they haven’t got any ethics or morals.

The postman delivered the letters at seven-thirty when I was sitting on the toilet. This is just my luck!

My father collected the letters and put them behind the clock. I had a quick look through them while he was coughing on his first cigarette of the day. Sure enough there was one addressed to my parents in Mr Cherry’s uneducated handwriting!

My mother and father slopped over each other for a few minutes and then opened the letters whilst their Rice Krispies were going soggy. There were seven lousy Christmas cards, which they put up on a string overthe fireplace. My eyes were focused on Mr Cherry’s letter. My mother opened it, read it and said, ‘George, that old git Cherry’s sent his bloody paper bill in’. Then they ate their Rice Krispies and that was that. I wasted a lot of adrenalin worrying. I won’t have enough left if I’m not careful.

My mother has told me why she left creep Lucas and returned to my father. She said, ‘Bimbo treated me like a sex object, Adrian, and he expected his evening meal cooked for him, and he cut his toe-nails in the living room, and besides I’m very fond of your father’. She didn’t mention me.

I am in an experimental Nativity play at school. It is called Manger to Star. I am playing Joseph. Pandora is playing Mary. Jesus is played by the smallest first-year. He is called Peter Brown. He is on drugs to make him taller.

Another letter from the BBC!

‘Try again’! He is almost giving me a commission. I have written back to him:

Moon’s Last Quarter

Today’s rehearsal of Manger to Star was a fiasco. Peter Brown has grown too big for the crib, so Mr Animba, the Woodwork teacher, has got to make another one.

Mr Scruton sat at the back of the gym and watched rehearsals. He had a face like the north face of the Eiger by the time we’d got to the bit where the three wise men were reviled as capitalist pigs.

He took Miss Elf into the showers and had a ‘Quiet Word’. We all heard every word he shouted. He said he wanted to see a traditional Nativity play, with a Tiny Tears doll playing Jesus and three wise men dressed in dressing gowns and tea towels. He threatened to cancel the play if Mary, alias Pandora, continued to go into simulated labour in the manger. This is typical of Scruton, he is nothing but a small-minded, provincial, sexually-inhibited fascist pig. How he rose to become a headmaster I do not know. He has been wearing the same hairy green suit for three years. How can we change it all now? The play is being performed on Tuesday afternoon.

My mother has had a Christmas card from creep Lucas! Inside he had written, ‘Paulie, Have you got the dry-cleaning ticket for my best white suit? Sketch-ley’s are being very difficult’. My mother was very upset. My father rang Sheffield and ordered Lucas to cease communications, or risk getting a bit of Sheffield steel in between his porky shoulder blades. My father looked dead good on the telephone. He had a cigarette stuck between his lips. My mother was leaning on the corner of the fridge. She had a cigarette in her hand. They looked a bit like the Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall postcard on my wall. I wish I was a real gangster’s son, at least you would see a bit of life.

I’ve got no money for Christmas presents. But I have made my Christmas list in case I find ten pounds in the street.

• Pandora—Big bottle of Chanel Ndeg5 (PS1.50)

• Mother—Egg-timer (75p)

• Father—Bookmark (38p)

• Grandma—Packet of J cloths (45p)

• Dog—Dog chocolates (45p)

• Bert—20 Woodbines (95p)

• Auntie Susan—Tin of Nivea (60p)

• Sabre—Box of Bob Martins, small (39p)

• Nigel—Family box of Maltesers (34p)

• Miss Elf—Oven-glove (home-made)

Fourth in Advent

Pandora and I had a private Mary and Joseph rehearsal in my bedroom. We improvised a great scene where Mary gets back from the Family Planning Clinic and tells Joseph she’s pregnant. I played Joseph like Marion Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. Pandora played Mary a bit like Blanche Dubois; it was dead good until my father complained about the shouting. The dog was supposed to be the lowly cattle, but it wouldn’t keep still long enough to make a tableau.

After tea my mother casually mentioned that she was going to wear her fox-fur coat to the school concert tomorrow. Shock! Horror! I immediately went round to Pandora’s house to get the mangy coat, only to find that Pandora’s mother has borrowed it to go to the Marriage Guidance Christmas dinner and dance! Pandora said that she hadn’t realized that the coat was only on loan; she thought it was a lover’s gift! How can a 143/4-year-old schoolboy afford to give a fox-fur coat as a gift? Who does Pandora think I am, a millionaire like Freddie Laker?

Pandora’s mother won’t be back until the early hours so I will have to go round before school and sneak the coat into its plastic cover. It’s going to be difficult, but then nothing in my life is simple or straightforward any more. I feel like a character in a Russian novel half the time.

Woke up with a panic attack to see that it was eight-fifty by my bedside digital! My black walls looked unusually light and sparkly; one glance outside confirmed my suspicions that indeed the snow lay outside like a white carpet.

I stumbled through the snow to Pandora’s house in my father’s fishing boots but found that the house was devoid of humans. I looked through the letterbox and saw my mother’s fur coat being mauled about by Pandora’s ginger cat. I shouted swear-words at it butthe lousy stinking cat just looked sarcastic and carried on dragging the coat around the hall. I had no choice but to shoulder-charge the laundry-room door and rush into the hall and rescue my mother’s coat. I left quickly (as quickly as anyone can wearing thigh-length fishing boots, four sizes too big). I put the fur coat on to keep me warm on my hazardous journey home. I nearly lost my bearings at the corner of Ploughman’s Avenue and Shepherd’s Crook Drive, but I fought my way through the blizzard until I saw the familiar sight of the prefabricated garages on the corner of our cul-de-sac.

I fell into our kitchen in a state of hypothermia and severe exhaustion; my mother was smoking a cigarette and making mince pies. She screamed, ‘What the bloody hell are you doing wearing my fox-fur coat?’ She was not kind or concerned or anything that mothers are supposed to be. She fussed about, wiping snow off the coat and drying the fur with a hair dryer. She didn’t even offer to make me a hot drink or anything. She said, ‘It’s been on the radio that the school is closed because of the snow, so you can make yourself useful and check the camp beds for rust. The Sugdens are staying over Christmas.’ The Sugdens! My mother’s relations from Norfolk! Yuk, Yuk. They are all inbred and can’t speak properly!

Phoned Pandora to explain about the fox-fur and the damage, etc., but she had gone skiing on the slope behind the Co-op bakery. Pandora’s father asked me to get off the line, he had to make an urgent phone call to the police station. He said he had just comehome and discovered a break-in! He said the place was a shambles (the cat must have done it, I was very careful), but fortunately the only thing that was missing was an old fox-fur coat that Pandora had lined the cat’s basket with.

Sorry Pandora, but this is the final straw that broke the donkey’s back! You can find yourself another Joseph, I refuse to share the stage with a girl who puts her cat’s comfort before her boyfriend’s dilemma.

School was closed this morning because the teachers couldn’t manage to get in on time because of the snow. That will teach them to live in old mill houses and windmills out in the country! Miss Elf lives with a West Indian in a terraced house in the town, so she bravely turned out to prepare for the school concert in the afternoon. I decided to forgive Pandora for the fox-fur in the cat’s basket incident after she had pointed out that the cat was an expectant mother.

The school concert was not a success. The bell ringing from class One-G went on too long, my father said ‘The Bells! The Bells!’ and my mother laughed too loudly and made Mr Scruton look at her.

The school orchestra was a disaster! My mother said, ‘When are they going to stop tuning-up and start playing?’ I told her that they had just played a Mozart horn concerto. That made my mother and father and Pandora’s mother and father start laughing in a veryunmannerly fashion. When ten-stone Alice Bernard from Three-C came on stage in a tutu and did the dying swan I thought my mother would explode. Alice Bernard’s mother led the applause, but not many people followed.

The Dumbo class got up and sang a few boring old carols. Barry Kent sang all the vulgar versions (I know because I was watching his lips) then they sat down cross-legged, and brainbox Henderson from Five-K played a trumpet, Jew’s harp, piano and guitar. The smarmy git looked dead superior when he was bowing during his applause. Then it was the interval and time for me to change into my white T-shirt-and-Wranglers Joseph costume. The tension backstage was electric. I stood in the wings (a theatrical term—it means the side of the stage) and watched the audience filing back into their places. Then the music from Close Encounters boomed out over the stereo speakers, and the curtains opened on an abstract manger and I just had time to whisper to Pandora ‘Break a leg, darling’, before Miss Elf pushed us out into the lights. My performance was brilliant! I really got under the skin of Joseph but Pandora was less good, she forgot to look tenderly at Jesus/Peter Brown.

The three punks/wise men made too much noise with their chains and spoiled my speech about the Middle East situation, and the angels representing Mrs Thatcher got hissed by the audience so loudly that their spoken chorus about unemployment was wasted.

Still, all in all, it was well received by the audience. Mr Scruton got up and made a hypocritical speechabout ‘a brave experiment’ and ‘Miss Elf’s tireless work behind the scenes’, and then we all sang ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’!

Driving home in the car my father said, ‘That was the funniest Nativity play I have ever seen. Whose idea was it to turn it into a comedy?’ I didn’t reply. It wasn’t a comedy.

9AM. Only two shopping days left for Christmas and I am still penniless. I have made a Blue Peter oven-glove for Miss Elf, but in order to give it to her in time for Christmas I will have to go into the ghetto and risk getting mugged.

I will have to go out carol singing, there is nothing else I can do to raise finance.

10 PM. Just got back from carol singing. The suburban houses were a dead loss. People shouted, ‘Come back at Christmas’, without even opening the door. My most appreciative audience were the drunks staggering in and out of the Black Bull. Some of them wept openly at the beauty of my solo rendition of ‘Silent Night’. I must say that I presented a touching picture as I stood in the snow with myyoung face lifted to the heavens ignoring the scenes of drunken revelry around me.

I made PS3.131/2 plus an Irish tenpence and Guinness bottle-top. I’m going out again tomorrow. I will wear my school uniform, it should be worth a few extra quid.

Took Bert’s Woodbines round to the home. Bert is hurt because I haven’t been to see him. He said he didn’t want to spend Christmas with a lot of malicious old women. Him and Queenie are causing a scandal. They are unofficially engaged. They have got their names on the same ashtray. I have invited Bert and Queenie for Christmas Day. My mother doesn’t know yet but I’m sure she won’t mind, we have got a big turkey. I sang a few carols for the old ladies. I made two pounds eleven pence out of them so I went to Woolworth’s to buy Pandora’s Chanel Ndeg5. They hadn’t got any so I bought her an underarm deodorant instead.

The house looks dead clean and sparkling, there is a magic smell of cooking and satsumas in the air. I have searched around for my presents but they are not in the usual places. I want a racing bike, nothing else will please me. It’s time I was independently mobile. 11 PM. Just got back from the Black Bull. Pandora came with me, we wore our school uniforms and reminded all the drunks of their own children. They coughed up conscience money to the tune of twelve pounds fifty-seven! So we are going to see a pantomime on Boxing Day and we will have a family bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk each!

Christmas Day

Got up at 5 AM to have a ride on my racing bike. My father paid for it with American Express. I couldn’t ride it far because of the snow, but it didn’t matter. I just like looking at it. My father had written on the gift tag attached to the handlebars, ‘Don’t leave it out in the rain this time’—as if I would!

My parents had severe hangovers, so I took them breakfast in bed and gave them my presents at the same time. My mother was overjoyed with her egg-timer and my father was equally delighted with his bookmark, in fact everything was going OK until I casually mentioned that Bert and Queenie were my guests for the day, and would my father mind getting out of bed and picking them up in his car.

The row went on until the lousy Sugdens arrived. My grandma and grandad Sugden and Uncle Dennis and his wife Marcia and their son Maurice all look the same, as if they went to funerals every day of their lives. I can hardly believe that my mother is related to them. The Sugdens refused a drink and had a cup of tea whilst my mother defrosted the turkey in the bath. I helped my father carry Queenie (fifteen stone) and Bert (fourteen stone) out of our car. Queenie is one of those loud types of old ladies who dye their hair and try to look young. Bert is in love with her. He told me when I was helping him into the toilet.

Grandma Mole and Auntie Susan came at twelve-thirty and pretended to like the Sugdens. Auntie Susan told some amusing stories about life in prison but nobody but me and my father and Bert and Queenie laughed.

I went up to the bathroom and found my mother crying and running the turkey under the hot tap. She said, ‘The bloody thing won’t thaw out, Adrian. What am I going to do?’ I said, ‘Just bung it in the oven’. So she did.

We sat down to eat Christmas dinner four hours late. By then my father was too drunk to eat anything. The Sugdens enjoyed the Queen’s Speech but nothing else seemed to please them. Grandma Sugden gave me a book called Bible Stories for Boys. I could hardly tell her that I had lost my faith, so I said thank-you and wore a false smile for so long that it hurt.

The Sugdens went to their camp beds at ten o’clock. Bert, Queenie and my mother and father played cards while I polished my bike. We all had a good time making jokes about the Sugdens. Then my father drove Bert and Queenie back to the home and I phoned Pandora up and told her that I loved her more than life itself.

I am going round to her house tomorrow to give her the deodorant and escort her to the pantomime.

Bank Holiday in UK and Rep. of Ireland (a day may be givenin lieu). New Moon

The Sugdens got up at 7 AM and sat around in their best clothes looking respectable. I went out on my bike. When I got back my mother was still in bed, and my father was arguing with Grandad Sugden about our dog’s behaviour, so I went for another ride.

I called in on Grandma Mole, ate four mince pies, then rode back home. I got up to 30 mph on the dual carriageway, it was dead good. I put my new suede jacket and corduroy trousers on (courtesy of my father’s Barclaycard) and called for Pandora; she gave me a bottle of after-shave for my Christmas present. It was a proud moment, it signified the End of Childhood.

We quite enjoyed the pantomime but it was rather childish for our taste. Bill Ash and Carole Hayman were good as Aladdin and the Princess, but the robbers played by Jeff Teare and Ian Giles were best. Sue Pomeroy gave a hilarious performance as Widow Twankey. In this she was greatly helped by her cow, played by Chris Martin and Lou Wakefield.

First after Christmas

The Sugdens have gone back to Norfolk, thank God! The house is back to its usual mess. My parentstook a bottle of vodka and two glasses to bed with them last night. I haven’t seen them since.

Went to Melton Mowbray on my bike, did it in five hours.

I am in trouble for leaving my bike outside last night. My parents are not speaking to me. I don’t care, I have just had a shave and I feel magic.

My father is in a bad mood because there is only a bottle of V.P. sherry left to drink. He has gone round Pandora’s house to borrow a bottle of spirits.

The dog has pulled the Christmas tree down and made all the pine needles stick in the shag-pile.

I have finished all my Christmas books and the library is still shut. I am reduced to reading my father’s Reader’s Digests and testing my word power.

All the balloons have shrivelled up. They look like old women’s breasts shown on television documentaries about the Third World.

The last day of the year! A lot has happened. I have fallen in love. Been a one-parent child. Gone Intellectual. And had two letters from the BBC. Not bad going for a 143/4-year-old!

My mother and father have been to a New Year’s Eve dance at the Grand Hotel. My mother actually wore a dress! It is over a year since she showed her legs in public.

Pandora and I saw the New Year in together, we had a dead passionate session accompanied by Andy Stewart and a bagpiper.

My father came crashing through the front door at 1 AM carrying a lump of coal in his hand. Drunk as usual.

My mother started going on about what a wonderful son I was and how much she loved me. It’s a pity she never says anything like that when she is sober.