We were all sorry to hear this morning of the death of Leicester author Sue Townsend, at the age of 68.
Sue of course was the author of the Adrian Mole series of books, and had been a regular subject of ours over the years.
Most recently we had photographed her for the Sunday Times to mark the release of her book “The Woman who went to bed for a year”.
Vivacous and welcoming, photographing her was always a good experience, and we have several autographed books of hers as a result!
She lived a fairly modest existence in Leicester for such a successful author, which I always found surprising.
Sue was Leicester born and bred, and left school at the age of 15 to work in a factory. She wrote her first novel whilst living on the city’s Saffron Lane estate.
Considering the seminal nature of her early works, which captured the zeitgeist of the Thatcher era, I have always been surprised that she has not been honoured by the state, (she was granted the freedom of Leicester city a few years ago). I suspect that this is the result of her modest non-London centric life.
Sue will be missed by everyone who met her, and is a sad loss for both her family, and everyone in Leicester.
