Sue Townsend
* * *
TRUE CONFESSIONS OF MARGARET HILDA ROBERTS AGED 14¼
Contents
Introductory Note
The Secret Diary of Margaret Hilda Roberts Aged 14¼
Correspondence of a Queen in Waiting
Follow Penguin
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sue Townsend was born in Leicester in 1946. Despite not learning to read until the age of eight, leaving school at fifteen with no qualifications and having three children by the time she was in her mid-twenties, she always found time to read widely. She also wrote secretly for twenty years. After joining a writer’s group at The Phoenix Theatre Leicester, she won a Thames Television award for her first play, Womberang, and became a professional playwright and novelist.
Since the publication of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾ thirty years ago, Sue has made the nation laugh and sometimes pricked its conscience. She has written seven further volumes of Adrian’s diaries and five other popular novels – including The Queen and I and Number Ten – and numerous well-received plays. She still lives in Leicester, and today is widely regarded as Britain’s favourite comic writer.
Visit www.suetownsend.co.uk
By the same author
FICTION
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾
The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole
The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole, Margaret Hilda Roberts and Susan Lilian Townsend
Adrian Mole: From Minor to Major
Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years
Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years
Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction
The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole 1999–2001
Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years
Rebuilding Coventry
The Queen and I
Ghost Children
Number Ten
Queen Camilla Plays
Bazaar and Rummage
Womberang
Groping for Words
The Great Celestial Cow
Ten Tiny Fingers, Nine Tiny Toes
The Queen and I
The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year
NON-FICTION
Mr Bevan’s Dream
The Published Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (Aged 55¾)
Introductory Note
Margaret Hilda Roberts. These diary entries were found between the pages of The Be-Ro Cook Book for Girls at a car boot sale in Grantham on a Bank Holiday Monday in 1988.
Nothing (unfortunately) is known about Margaret Hilda Roberts or what became of her. The diary is believed to have been written in the 1930.
The Secret Diary of Margaret Hilda Roberts Aged 14¼
Friday May 6th
Father has cleverly seen a gap in the lavatory paper market; illiterate households don’t buy newspapers, so father is selling ready-strung bundles at a penny farthing each. The first consignment went on sale at 8am and was sold out by 12.30pm. Mrs Arkwright bought six bundles explaining: ‘My little ’uns ’as all got the runs through the ’oles in their boots.’
A traveller from London called in for an ounce of shag and passed on a rumour he had heard that a future socialist government would introduce free milk to schools. Father went the colour of barley and had to sit down. When he recovered he said to me: ‘ The socialists are out to ruin the small shopkeeper, Margaret.’ I said: ‘But Father, you’ll be all right, you are over six feet tall.’ The traveller and father laughed, I don’t know why. If the filthy socialists ever do take power I shall refuse to drink free school milk. If the poor cannot afford to buy it then they must go without.
Saturday May 7th
Angela Pork-Cracklin had sent a message to the shop asking if I would make up a four in the mixed doubles to be held this evening on her parents’ court. Father was delighted (he has been after the Pork-Cracklins’ Earl Grey order for years). I told Father that I didn’t know how to play tennis. But he took his apron off and ran to the library, returning with Fundamentals of Lawn Tennis. Mother was told to run a tennis dress up on the Singer and, between customers, father and I practised a few strokes using biscuit tins as racquets and stale rock cakes as balls. By four o’clock I had perfected serving to the base line (the bacon slicer) and was working on my back hand, when Mother brought my tennis dress in to be fitted. She spoilt everything by shouting, ‘Just look at all this ’ere mess. There’s crumbs and currants all over my clean shop floor.’ Father remained calm. He simply sent Mother into the back room to whiten my plimsolls. By six o’clock I had memorized the rules of lawn tennis, and by 7.30 I had beaten Angela Pork-Cracklin six-love six-love. Angela ran into the big house and refused to come out for mixed doubles so they were abandoned and I lost my chance to bring up the subject of the Earl Grey order.
Father was tearing newspaper into squares when I arrived home. We sat and discussed my triumph. Mother joined us while she unpicked the tennis dress for dusters. Thus the time before bed was spent very pleasantly.
Sunday May 8th
Up at 5am. Did two hours of delicious mathematical equations then woke Mother and ordered her to prepare breakfast. Honestly, she is such a slug-a-bed. She would stay in bed until 7.30am if I let her!
Chapel and Sunday school in the morning, then dinner (lunch, Margaret, lunch!) followed by afternoon Sunday school, high tea and evening chapel. An ordinary Sunday except for an extraordinary incident when Mother was caught red-handed breaking the Sabbath. Yes, at four o’clock I walked into the back room and saw Mother cleaning her shoes. I called Father at once and he came downstairs and witnessed Mother with the Cherry Blossom in one hand and the polish rag in the other. She begged forgiveness but Father was not to be swayed and he forbade her to accompany us to evening chapel. Her absence is sure to cause tongues to wag amongst the congregation but rules are rules and are meant to be kept. All else is anarchy.
Monday May 9th
Hurrah! Another week of school begins. There is a new girl in our class. Her name is Edwina Slurry. She is obviously ambitious, but she’ll have to work jolly hard to knock me from my position at the top of the class. I have asked Mother if I can stop wearing a Liberty bodice. The buttons are an awful nuisance when one is dressing after games. She is going to confer with father and let me know.
Tuesday May 10th
I have been to see the head to ask if I can be excused from Art. All that messing about with paint and paper is a sheer waste of time, especially when I could be working. Miss Fossdyke said: ‘Margaret, the function of Art is to develop the sensibilities, and you of all the girls in my school need to do this as a matter of urgency.’ I can’t think what she meant by her remarks as I am easily the most sensible girl in the school.
Wednesday May 11th
Edwina Slurry has been toadying to a disgusting degree. Some of the more impressionable girls have taken to walking arm-in-arm in the corridors with her.
Lady Olga Wasteland lectured the whole school this afternoon. Her subject was ‘The Horrors of War’. She related how horrified she was when she realized that fully fashioned nylons were no longer in the shops.
Thursday May 12th
Methodist Youth Club was spoiled by a fight involving the Prior gang and Cecil Parkhurst’s friends. The tea urn was knocked over and the sugar bowl was broken. I think it is time the Prior gang was banned. They have caused nothing but trouble since they became members. Cecil behaved like the gentleman he is by escorting me out of the hall and seeing that Prior and his bully boys did not bother me.
Was rather upset when I got into bed so I indulged myself in read
ing my favourite page from Higher Mathematics Book Four. The problem ‘XXYYZZ = ZZYYZZ, discuss’ never fails to make me laugh out loud. However, life can’t be all pleasure so I put out the light, repeated ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain’ two hundred times and went to sleep.
Friday May 13th
Dearest diary, without Cecil my life has no meaning, no direction. How I miss him. O Cecil! If only a way could be found to slot you back into decent Grantham society. Meeting illicitly over your weekly Brylcreem order isn’t enough for me. Why will no one tell me your crime? What was it exactly you did? Must finish now as it is midnight and father and I are about to do the stocktaking. Mother has already slunk off to bed with a cup of Ovaltine. She is only working a sixteen-hour day. She is not pulling her weight. I will speak to father tonight.
3am. Just back from the woods where Cecil is hiding. I gave him his Brylcreem and was rewarded by a limp handshake; at least I think it was his hand I was shaking; it was too dark to see properly.
Saturday May 14th
I am in disgrace. Father has found out about the missing jars of Brylcreem. How foolish I was to think he wouldn’t notice. In his rage father accused me of having an affair with Arnold Arkwright, who plasters the stuff on his hair with a trowel. I was in the middle of counting the hundreds and thousands cake decorations, and was so upset by father’s unjust accusation that I lost count and had to start again. It was 5am before I got to bed.
Sunday May 15th
Father was awfully stern in the pulpit today. He railed against professional churchmen who insist on meddling in politics. (A guarded reference to Monsignor Kent who is petitioning the council for a street lamp in Church Lane.) After Sunday dinner I gave father the money I have been saving up for the elocution lessons. I said, ‘Father, this is to pay for the purloined Brylcreem.’ He said, ‘I appreciate the gesture, daughter, but keep the money, you must acquire a slight lisp if you want to get on in the world.’
Mother said, ‘I think it’s more important to learn to roll your Rs.’ Then she ran giggling into the back room with her apron over her head. Father and I looked at each other baffled.
Monday May 16th
Everybody is being perfectly horrid to me at school. I’ve been to the headmistress to complain but even she was unsympathetic. She said, ‘You’re overworking, Roberts, I want you to take a few days off.’ I protested that the school couldn’t function without me. The head snapped, ‘Go home Roberts, and give this note to your parents.’
Dear Mr and Mrs Roberts,
Margaret’s behaviour has been giving me great cause for concern. At all times she is neat, clean and controlled. She works prodigiously hard. She is top of every subject barring Art (which, as you know, she sees no point in doing). She is highly competitive on the sports field, is an excellent needlewoman and always wears highly polished shoes. Indeed she is the type of girl one ought to be proud of; but Margaret is wearing out my staff with her constant requests for more work. She is already ink, milk and register monitor. Class, sports and house captain. She works in the green-house during her playtimes and has offended the school’s groundsman by marking out the school hockey pitch during her dinner break. This morning I came into school early and found her mopping out the lavatories. All very laudable, you may think, but her mania for work is making her very unpopular with the other girls. Are there problems at home? Is she compensating for some lack of affection or attention on your part? I’m sorry to worry you with all this but I sometimes fear for Margaret’s future. She is an ambitious and clever girl but she must learn to tolerate those of us who are rather more fallible.
Headmistress, Kesteven and Grantham Girls School
PS. By the way, have you any of those walnut fancies in stock? If you have please bag two separate quarter pounds. I will call in to the shop on Wednesday at 4.59pm to collect them. (Please arrange for Margaret to be in the back room, out of sight.) Thanking you in advance.
Father’s hand trembled as he bagged the walnut fancies. He said, ‘Geniuses are never recognized in their own land.’
Mother suggested an outing to the fairground tomorrow night. I don’t want to go but Father insisted that Mother be chaperoned so I consented.
Tuesday May 17th
The fairground was full of smelly, working-class oiks enjoying themselves. Mrs Arkwright’s lodgers, Ginger Skinnock and Roy Batterfree, were trying their strength against Big Benn the strongman. Big Benn watched their efforts with a supercilious smile. Skinnock and Batterfree were advised by Big Benn that there was only one way to ring the bell and that was to gather all of your strength and then let the hammer fall on the target. Gormless Howe, the village idiot, was driving around the dodgem track in a random and dangerous manner, bumping into other cars. A fairground worker leapt on the back of his car and steered him safely to the side. Poor halfwit, his mother shouldn’t let him out on his own. I left Mother shrieking her head off on the Big Wheel and crept into Madame Du Cann’s tent to have my fortune told.
Wednesday May 18th
I’m still reeling from Madame Du Cann’s predictions. She said, ‘Youse going to be the mightiest in the land one day.’ I gasped, ‘The Queen?’ ‘No, better than Queen,’ she rasped. I wiped my palms and she continued her scrutiny, but then a look of horror crossed her face. ‘What is it?’ I cried. ‘No! No! ’Tis too ’orrible!’ she croaked. ‘Get you home, you poor, doomed creature.’
What else did she see? I must know.
Thursday May 19th
I crept from the shop and pounded (difficult to do on canvas) on Madame Du Cann’s tent flap. Her swarthy features grimaced as she saw me. Eventually, after silver had crossed hands, she consented to tell me all.
‘You will marry a small bald man with weak eyes who will sire you with two babies from one egg. One will be a she child and will give you no trouble but the other, t’other will be a he child and will grow to be a monster. He will bear the name of a European currency (Frank?) and after embarrassing you with family planning sponsorship and wandering a desert he will destroy your career. For, and this is the curse, you will love this monster blindly and will see no wrong in him.’
She fell, shuddering, onto the card table and I went home to the shop and slept soundly. As if I would ever do THAT with a man, even once!
Friday May 20th
Woke up at 4am, refreshed after an hour and a half’s sleep. Just for fun read Intermediate Chemistry and committed to memory the more difficult formulae. However, life cannot, and should not, be one endless round of pleasure, so at 5am rose and went downstairs to the shop and helped father to water down the dandelion and burdock. Out of two dozen original bottles we managed to eke out one dozen more. Father, who is a good Methodist, explained that our actions were perfectly moral, and that Jesus’s trick with the loaves and fishes was an honourable precedent.
Saturday May 21st
A dreadful thing happened today. A country bus collided with Angela Pork-Cracklin’s horse, ‘Snooty’. The bus overturned and ended up in a turnip field. Poor Snooty bruised a fetlock, also several working-class people were killed and injured. Father and I have sent a card to Angela commiserating with her on the injury suffered by her beloved, pure-bred beast.
The Parish Council elections take place soon, so father thought it would be polite if I visited the injured in the cottage hospital. I telephoned the Matron to inform her of my impending visit but, to my astonishment, she advised me not to come. I snapped, ‘But, my good woman, I have arranged for the local press to be there.’
She said, ‘I don’t care if the editor of the Bible is there. My patients are still shocked and are in no condition to receive visitors.’
Father got on the telephone to a member of the hospital board who happens to owe us 5 pounds 10 shillings for sweet sherry, and hey presto the hospital doors opened for me. I was photographed with an Arnold Grimbold (double amputation), a Mabel Spiggs (fractured skull) and a Hed Noddy (multiple fractures) and, by accident, a Nig
el Lawless (obesity and inflation). The patients did not seem at all grateful to see me or appreciative of my little jokes about the ‘horse power’ of the bus. I promised to return on Wednesday.
Sunday May 22nd
Arnold Grimbold committed suicide tonight. He left a note: ‘I can’t face Wednesday.’ This is thought to be a reference to the day his stumps were due to be dressed. What a weakling; Grantham is better off without him. I have asked for the grapes I gave him on Saturday to be returned to the shop.
Monday May 23rd
Got up at 5am and helped father to water down the vinegar. Screwed the caps back on bottles then had a lovely cold bath.
Walking to school I was almost knocked down by a horrid working-class man on a bicycle. I castigated him severely. He feebly explained that he had momentarily lost concentration due to tiredness after cycling 60 miles looking for work. I pointed out that he had absolutely no excuse for not keeping to the straight and narrow path and took his name. He claimed it was Tebbit, but I have my doubts. He looked awfully shifty, quite peculiar eyes. His sort ought to be forbidden to breed.
After a most enjoyable maths lesson I felt it was my duty as a monitoress to lecture the first years on the importance of having spotless finger nails. One or two started to snivel, so I kept them behind and gave them a jolly good talking to about keeping one’s emotion in check.