The Tap (Tuesday, 13 January -- Secret Diary)

The tap drips and keeps me awake,
In the morning there will be a lake.
For the want of a washer the carpet will spoil,
Then for another my father will toil.
My father could snuff it while he is at work.
Dad, fit a washer don't be a burk!

(Saturday, 14 February -- Secret Diary)

Pandora!
I adore ya.
I implore ye
Don't ignore me.

Blossom (Sunday, 14 March -- Secret Diary)

Little Brown Horse
Eating apples in a field,
Perhaps on day
My heart will be healed.
I stroke the places Pandora has sat
Wearing her jodphurs and her riding hat.
Goodbye, brown horse.
I turn and retreat,
The rain and the mud are wetting my feet.

PANDORA! PANDORA! PANDORA! (Saturday, 25 July -- Secret Diary)

Oh! My love,
My heart is yearning,
My mouth is dry,
My soul is burning.
You're in Tunisia,
I am here.
Remember me and shed a tear.
Come back tanned and brown and healthy.
You're lucky that your dad is wealthy.


Extract from My thoughts on Scotland written on the M6 at 120 mph (Sunday, 30 August -- Secret Diary)

The hallowed mist rolls away leaving Scotland's majestic peaks revealed in all their majesty. A shape in the translucent sky reveals itself to be an eagle, that majestic bird of prey. Talons clawing, it lands on a loch, rippling the quiet majesty of the turbulent waters. The eagle pauses only to dip its majestic beak into the aqua before spreading its majestic wings and flying away to its magisterial nest high in the barren, arid, grassless hills.
The Highland cattle. Majestic horned beast of the glens lowers its brown eyed shaggy haired majestic head as it ruminates on the mysteries of Glencoe.


Untitled (Monday, 28 September -- Secret Diary)

Bert, you are dead old.
Fond of Sabre, beetroot and Woodbines.
We have nothing in common,
I am fourteen and a half,
You are eighty-nine.
You smell, I don't.
Why we are friends
Is a mystery to me.

Untitled (Wednesday, 18 November -- Secret Diary)

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.

Inscription from a false Victorian card for Pandora, from Adrian (Sunday, 14 February -- Secret Diary)

My young love,
Treacle hair and knee-socks
Give my system deep shocks
You've a magic figure:
I'm Roy Rogers, you are Trigger.


Spring (Friday, 19 March -- Secret Diary)

The trees explode into bud, indeed some of them are in leaf. Their branches thrust to the sky like drunken scarecrows. Their trunks writhe and twist into the earth and form a plethora of roots. The brilliant sky hovers uncertainly like a shy bride at the door of her nuptial chamber. Birds wing and scrape their erratic way into the cotton-wool clouds like drunken scarecrows. The translucent brook gurgles majestically towards its journey's end. 'To the sea!' it cries, 'to the sea!' it endlessly repeats.
A lonely boy, his loins afire, sits and watches his calm reflection in the torrential brook. His heart is indeed heavy. His eyes fall on to the ground and rest on a wondrous majestic many-hued butterfly. The winged insect takes flight and the boys eyes are carried far away until they are but a speck on the red-hued sunset. He senses on the zephyr a hope for mankind.


The Discontented Tuna (Wednesday, 7 April -- Growing Pains)

I am a Tuna fish
Swimming in a sea of discontent.
Oh, when, when,
Will I find the spawning ground?


Longing for Wolverhampton by Adrienne Storme (Thursday, 6 May -- Growing Pains)

Jason Westmoreland's copper-flecked eyes glanced cynically around the terrace. He was sick of Capri and longed for Wolverhampton.
He flexed his remaining fingers and examined them critically. The accident with the chain saw had ended his brilliant career in electronics. His days were now devoid of microchips. There was a yawning chasm in his life. He had tried to fill it with the travel and self-gratification but nothing could blot out the memories he had of Gardenia Fetherington, the virginal plastic surgeon, at St. Bupa's in Wolverhampton. Jason brooded, blindly blinking back big blury tears....

Norway (Saturday, 12 June -- Growing Pains)

Norway! Land of difficult spelling.
Hiding your beauty behind strange vowels.
Land of long nights, short days, and dots over 'O's.
Ruminating majestic reindeers
Tread wearily on ice floes
Ever aware of what happened to the
Titanic
One day I will sjourn to your shores
I live in the midle of England
But!
Norway! My soul resides in your watery fiords fyords fiiords
Inlets.


Ode to Engels or Hymn to the Modern Poor (Monday, 12 July -- Growing Pains)

Engels, you catalogued the misfortunes of the poor in days of yore,
Little thinking that the poor would still be with us in nearly 1984.
Yet stay! What is this I see in 1983?
'Tis a queue of hungry persons outside the Job Centre.
Though rats and TB be but sad memories
The pushchairs of the modern poor contain pasty babies with hacking coughs
Young mothers draw on number six
Young fathers queue to pay fines
Old people watch life pass by the plate-glass windows of council homes
Oh Engels that you were still amongst us pen in hand
Your indignation a-quiver
Your fine nose tuned to the bad smells of 1983.


Waiting for the Giro (Thursday, 30 September -- Growing Pains)

The pantry door creaks showing empty Fablon shelves.
The freezer echoes with mournful electrical whirrings.
The boy goes ragged trousered to school.
The woman waits at the letterbox.
The bills line up behind the clock.
The dog whimpers empty-bellied in sleep.
The building society writes letters penned in vitriol.
The house waits, waits, waits.
Waits for the giro.


Mrs Thatcher (Saturday, 6 November -- Growing Pains)

Do you weep, Mrs Thatcher, do you weep?
Do you wake, Mrs Thatcher, in your sleep?
Do you weep like a sad willow?
On your Marks and Spencer's pillow?
Are your tears molten steel?
Do you weep?
Do you wake with 'Three Million' on your brain?
Are you sorry that they'll never work again?
When you're dressing in your blue, do you see the waiting queue?
Do you weep, Mrs Thatcher, do you weep?


Rosie - a description of a person for English (Monday, 22 November -- Growing Pains)

Rosie is about eighteen inches long, she has got a big head with fuzzy black hair in a Friar Tuck style. Unlike the rest of our family, her eyes are brown. She has got quite a good skin. Her mouth is extremely small, except when she is screaming. Then it resembles an underground cavern. She has got a wrinkled-up neck like a turkey's. She dresses in unisex clothes, and always wears disposable nappies. She lazes about all day in a carrycot and only gest out when it is time to be fed or changed. She has got a split personality; calm one minute, screaming like a maniac the next.
She is only eleven days old but she rules our house.


Queenie's Death Announcement (Wednesday, 8 December -- Growing Pains)

White face, red cheeks.
Eyes like crocus buds.
Hands deft and sure, yet worked to gnarled rots.
A practical comfortable body, dressed in young colours.
Feet twisted, but planted firmly on the ground.
A sure soft voice, with a crackly sudden laugh.
Her body is lifeless and cold,
But the memory of her is joyful and as warm as a rockpool in August.


The Future - written on the toilet wall (Thursday, 17 February -- Growing Pains)

What future is there for the young?
What songs are waiting to be sung?
There are no mountains left to climb,
No poetry without a rhyme.
No jobs to go to after school.
We divide and still they rule.
They give us Job Creation Schemes.
When what we want are hopes and dreams.


Precint by A. Mole, aged 15 years 11 months (Thursday, 10 March -- Growing Pains)

Jake Butcher closed his eyes against the cruel wind that whistled over the paving slabs of the deserted shopping precinct. His cigarette dropped with a curse from his lips. 'Damn,' he expectorated.
It was his last cigarette. He ground the forlorn fag under the sold of his trusty Doc Marten's boot. He dug both fists into the womb-like pockets ofhis anorak, and with his remaining hand he adjusted the fastening on his Adidas sports bag.
Just then a sudden shaft of bright snlight illuminated the windows of Tesco's. 'Christ,' said Jake to himself, 'those windows are the same yellow as in Van Gogh's sunflower painting!' Thus, ruminating on art and culture, did Jake pass the time.
Quite soon a sudden clap of thunder announced itself. 'Christ,' said Jake, 'that thunder sounds like the cannons of the 1812 Symphony!'.
He bitterly drew his anorak hood over his head, as raindrops like giant tears fell onto the concrete wasteland. 'What am I doing here?' questioned Jake to himself. 'Why did I come?' he anguished. 'Where am I going?' he agonized. Just then, a sudden rainbow appeared.
'Christ,' said Jake, 'that rainbow looks like...'


Daffodils (Tuesday, 19 April -- Growing Pains)

While on my settee I lie
From out of the corner of my eye
I spot a clump of Yellow Daffodils,
Bowing and shaking as a lorry goes by.
Brave green stalks supporting yellow bonnets.
Like the wife of a man who writes Love Sonnets.

Lyrics for Danny Thompon's Reggae Band (Monday, 30 May -- Growing Pains)

Hear what he saying by A. Mole

Sisters and Brothers listen to Jah,
Hear his words from near and far,
Haile Selassie he sit on the throne.
Hear what he saying, Hear what he saying (Repeated 10 times.)
JAH! JAH! JAH!

Rise up and follow Selassie, the king.
A new tomorrow to you he will bring (Repeat.)
E-the-o-pi-a
He'll bring new hope to ya.
Hear what he saying, Hear what he saying. (Repeated 10 times.)

"I've got no money for Christmas presents. But I have made my Christmas list in case I find ten pounds in the street." (Saturday, 19 December -- Secret Diary)

"I have just realized I have never seen a dead body or a real female nipple. This is what comes of living in a cul-de-sac." (Sunday, 9 May -- Growing Pains)

"I am very aware that I am living through a historical period and I, Adrian Mole, predict that the British people will force the government to resign." (Sunday, 6 June -- Growing Pains)

"You can't walk down the street without bumping into pregnant women and it has all happened since the council put flouride in the water." (Monday, 7 June -- Growing Pains)

"My mother wants to move. She wants to sell the house that I have lived in all my life. She said that we will need more room 'for the baby.' How stupid can you get? Babies hardly take any space at all. They are only about twenty-one inches long." (Wednesday, 30 June -- Growing Pains)

"Dear Pan,

The sun came out on Wednesday, but it didn't reach into the black despair caused by your separation. It is a cultural desert here. Thank G0d I have brought my Nevil Shute books.

Yours unto infinity, Adrian X" (Friday, 6 August -- Growing Pains)

"Read the whole of 'Sex and Reproduction' in bed last night. Woke up to find that a few hundred million sperm had leaked out. Still, it will give the remaining sperm room to wag their tails about a bit." (Sunday, 26 September -- Growing Pains)

All quotes appearing on this page are copyrighted by Sue Townsend, the author.

Your Humble and Obedient Servant, A. Mole