The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole Part 6

She wouldn't play ball.

She didn't wear chiffon

Or white gloves to wave.

She lived through two wars

But wasn't called brave.

She drew her own curtains

And cooked her own dinners

She worked in a factory with good folk and sinners.

Her overdraft didn't exceed PS1.50.

But she didn't get praised for being so thrifty.

Farewell Mrs Worthington, fan of Nye Bevan

I hope you are warm again up there in Heaven.

Several people asked me the significance of "warm again", not knowing that Mrs Wormington had died of hypothermia after holidaying in Mablethorpe.

Tuesday, July 25

Glenn and William are on holiday from school for six weeks. What am I going to do with them? I have no funds with which to entertain them. We are only one day into the break, but William has already declared himself to be "bored". I told him that, when I was a lad, I entertained myself with non-stop activities. But, in truth, all I can remember doing is staring out of the window and waiting for school to begin again.

Wednesday, July 26

I reluctantly drew out PS50 from the building society, bought a family rail ticket and took my sons to Tate Modern. No one warned me about the vast metal spider in the Turbine Hall. William is an arachnophobe and froze with fear on seeing it. He then emitted a piercing scream. An American tourist asked me if William was an "auditory accompaniment to Louis Bourgeois's sculpture". I said "no", that he was just a little boy who was scared of spiders.

Thursday, July 27

Concorde is off the front pages; no British people were killed.

Sat.u.r.day, Ashby-de-la-Zouch

Ivan Braithwaite continues to be fascinated by what he calls "working-cla.s.s culture". He has suggested that our family go to Skegness on what he calls a "bucket-and-spade holiday". He drivelled on about candyfloss, donkeys and "the glorious vulgarity of the amus.e.m.e.nt arcade".

I had no choice but to say yes. I can't afford my preferred holiday - visiting literary shrines throughout the world. In fact, so far I have only visited one: Julian Barnes's house in Leicester. Though he left there when he was six weeks old.

Sunday A boarding house has been booked: The Utopia. Bed, breakfast and evening meal will cost Ivan PS13.50 per adult per night - half-price for William. Rosie has refused to go: she said she has got to attend Mad Dog Jackson's graduation ceremony. He is now an MA, and his dissertation, Socialism, Necrophilia And Other Taboos, has provoked interest from the Spectator.

Monday, The Utopia Talk about a major infringement of the Trades Description Act! The Dystopia would be a more accurate t.i.tle for this Draylon h.e.l.l-hole. I share a draughty attic room with William and Glenn. There is no s.p.a.ce in which to swing a dead vole, let alone a cat.

The view from the skylight is of mournful-looking seagulls with morsels of chips in their beaks. The owners, Barry and Yvonne Windermere, are ex-variety performers. I shall go mad if Barry tells me another "joke". Ivan and my mother think this raddled old duo are "fabulous characters". Personally, whenever I hear the fabulous characters phrase, I want to run - into the sea, until the cold waves close over my head.

Wednesday, wind shelter, Skegness Glenn is sulking in the attic, he has already spent all his pocket money on the slot machines in the arcade where we were forced to take shelter from the cruel wind that blows unchecked from the Urals across the North Sea.

Ivan and my mother struggled to construct a windbreak, and William, dressed in an anorak, sheltered behind it and tried to make a sandcastle, but his fingers turned blue and I had to take him into a cafe to thaw out. The place was full of s.h.i.+vering families eating terrible food.

Ivan went on saying to my mother, "This is an authentic working-cla.s.s experience, isn't it, Pauline?" His eyes were s.h.i.+ning with excitement. He is turned on by vulgarity. It is why he fell in love and married my mother.

My mother drew heavily on her St Moritz menthol f.a.g with the gold-rimmed filter and said, "Ivan, I'm no longer working cla.s.s. I read the Guardian and buy coffee beans now, or hadn't you noticed?"

Thursday The sun came out today. Ivan bought a kiss-me-quick-and-s.h.a.g-me-slow sunhat. I saw my mother wince when he put it on, but she kept her mouth shut and feigned interest in a stick of rock shaped like a p.e.n.i.s.

Friday, Queen Mother's birthday Barry and Yvonne have decorated the dining room with Union Jack bunting. The little table where the condiments are normally kept has been turned into a shrine to the Queen Mother. Two candles burn either side of a lurid photograph of the aged one.

Barry met her once, back-stage at the Palladium. "What did she say to you? I asked. "She asked me how long I'd been waiting," he said, his s...o...b..ry lips trembling with emotion. "And what did you reply?" I asked. "Not long, ma'am," he said, and almost broke down.

Unfortunately, Glen knocked over one of the candles at dinner time and set fire to the Queen Mother's photograph. I threw a cup of tea over it, but the damage was considerable. We have been asked to leave. Proof, perhaps, that there is a G.o.d.

Sat.u.r.day, Utopia Boarding Ouse, Skegness I've finished packing. Barry Windermere has just wheezed up to the attic to demand compensation for the damage Glenn did (inadvertently) to the Queen Mother's photograph. I refused to give him any more, and told him that the use of unguarded candles is a contravention of the 1981 Hotels & Boarding House Act. He believed this ridiculous lie, and scuttled back down the dark stairs with the stained carpet.

The rest of the family have voted to continue the holiday elsewhere. I was the only one who voted to return home. I feel like a contestant on Big Brother. (Incidentally, that Nicholas is a great bloke, I hope he wins.) Sunday, Plot 8, Sunny Sands Caravan Site, Hunstanton There are seven of us squeezed into a six-berth caravan. Rosie and Mad Dog Jackson arrived last night on his Harley-Davidson. I refuse to call him Mad Dog as he requested; it is bad enough having to be seen in his greasy, denimed company. My mother told me proudly that "he's very high up in the h.e.l.l's Angels hierarchy". She astounds me. If Rosie was my daughter, I would lock her away in a tall tower until she had woken up from the spell that Jackson has cast over her.

My whole family are in love with him. William and Glenn hang on to his every word. It is now Glenn's ambition to be inducted into the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Chapter of the h.e.l.l's Angels. Apparently, there are six of them living in a maisonette in Rosebud Drive. The induction ceremony involves eating raw tripe while being hung upside down from a tree. I said to Glenn that I had other plans for him. That he is to study the history of art at a decent university. Glenn muttered under his breath "Art fart", but I let it go. My nerves are in shreds. I couldn't face another acrimonious confrontation.

The caravan is too confined. I can hear everything through the plywood walls. I overheard my mother saying to Ivan Braithwaite tonight, "Ivan, why are we all cramped up in a caravan in Hunstanton when we can easily afford to stay in a decent Aparthotel with free watersports somewhere abroad?" He chuckled in that maddening way that makes me want to rip his smarmy head off his hairy shoulders and said, "Pauline, you're in denial about your working-cla.s.s heritage. I'm doing this for you. I want you to rediscover your roots".

My mother snapped that she had spent most of her adult life trying to better herself and hoped to be lower-middle cla.s.s by the time she was 55, and middle-middle cla.s.s at death. "The Co-Op won't be doing my funeral," she hissed. I heard her move along their bed in the kitchen (it doubles as a work-top and ironing board during the day). I was glad that their ardour was cooling. I was sick of having to listen to their pathetic attempts at love-making every night. Ivan is having trouble with his prostate. Fortunately, Mad Dog and Rosie are sleeping outside under the awning extension on a double Therm-A-Rest.

Monday Jackson has gone into Norwich to have a drink with Professor Malcolm Bradbury. He is hoping to get some lecturing work out of him. Is Professor Bradbury being terrorised into giving Jackson work? Has the notoriously gentle academic been threatened and intimidated? It would explain why that monosyllabic thicko, Jackson, has two degrees.

Thursday I took the boys to Wells-next-the-Sea today. As we strolled up the crowded main street, I saw Glenn looking with interest at a tray of tripe in a butcher's shop window. "It don't look too bad, Dad," he said. "I could get that down my neck."

Friday The Hog Roast-On-The-Beach has been cancelled due to the unreliability of English pigs.

Friday, August 18, Ashby-de-la-Zouch I have been brutally betrayed! I feel humiliated and sick! How could he have told such terrible lies to me over the past five weeks?

I admired him so much. He was the type of man I would have liked to have been myself. He was a man who could cope with adversity (the death of his young wife in a car crash). A man who led other men (an officer in the Territorial Army). He was also a healer (like Jesus), and a reiki master to boot.

I would have followed him into the jungle with hardly a qualm. So confident was I that he would win the PS70,000 that I withdrew PS50 from my long-term diamond deposit savings account (incurring loss of interest) and placed a personal bet with my father. It was with glee that my father phoned me at 4.45pm today from his hospital bed, where he is still languis.h.i.+ng with several NHS-bred infections, to tell me that my hero was about to be evicted from the House.

I didn't believe my father at first, diary. He once told me that I had won PS7 million on the lottery. This cost me dearly. To celebrate my "win", I rang the Lotus Flower home-delivery service and ordered the banquet special for six. On discovering my father's cruel joke, I tried to cancel the order, but ended up having an angry confrontation on the doorstep with Mr Wong, who wouldn't get back on his moped without the PS96.21 he insisted that I owed him.

However, when my mother rang my mobile to tell me that she and Ivan were watching on the net, I knew it must be true. I could hear Craig's dental lisp quite clearly down the phone. The Ludlows came from next door to disclose this world-shattering news, and Vince said, "It's a bleedin' triumph for the working cla.s.s, if you ask me."

Peggy Ludlow said she'd always thought Nick was Tim Henman, who had fled to the Big Brother House in disguise in order to avoid playing tennis.

I couldn't sleep last night. Do all my heroes have feet of clay? I have only recently recovered from Mr Aitken's downfall. I pray that Lord Hattersley will not be unmasked as the secret author of Mills and Boon romances, or that Will Self will not be revealed as a committee member of the Caravan Club of Great Britain.

Sat.u.r.day, August 19 I said to Glenn today, "Glenn, you will always remember where you were when you heard that Nick had been expelled from the House."

He looked back at me and said, "Course I will, Dad - I was watchin' it on the telly."

"You were taking part in history," I said.

"What, like the second world war?" he asked doubtfully.

"No, more like the day Beckham had his hair cut," I said.

"You're mixin' up popular history with proper history, Dad", said Glenn.

Chastened, I went to my bedroom to start the third chapter of Sty! (Swine fever has wiped out the entire pig population of Britain, apart from Peter, my hero. I may ret.i.tle Sty! and call it The Last Pig, instead.

My father rang this morning and insisted that I honour the bet! Personally, I think it was a great mistake to provide hospital patients with bedside telephones. They give their long-suffering relations no peace with their incessant, peevish demands for Lucozade and boxes of tissues.

Monday, August 21 The Last Pig: Peter watched from the sty as the 4x4 drew up by the computer shed in the farmyard. He saw Farmer Brown emerge from the chemical store and greet the Sky News crew. "Where's the last pig in Britain?" shouted a researcher. Peter rolled in the mire. He wanted to look good on camera: he was going to be famous.

Thursday 24, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicesters.h.i.+re Glenn has been upstairs for an hour with the unopened envelope with contains his GCSE results.

I can hear him muttering to himself as I write this diary entry. The tension in the house is unbelievable. I have promised to take him to Wells-Next-The-Sea if he attains anything over a D. He has fallen in love with a girl called Courtney, who works in French's fish and chip shop on the West Quay. The lad is certainly a quick mover. We were only in Wells for an hour-and-a-half. Apparently they bonded when Glenn knocked a tub of curry sauce off the counter.

She called him a stupid w.a.n.ker and that was it. They swapped e-mail addresses and have been in constant contact since. I am a little hurt that Glenn told me none of this and that I had to hear his news from my mother. Why doesn't the boy trust me with the secrets of his heart. I am his father, after all. Even David Archer has started to confide in Phil, since Ruth's chemotherapy treatment commenced.