Sue Townsend First marriage and pre-writing career Who did Sue Townsend first marry? She married Keith Townsend, a sheet metal worker at 18; the couple had three children under five by the time Townsend was 23 How long were they married? Townsend was 23 (Sean, Daniel and Victoria), at which point the marriage ended and she became a single parent. What did she do for a job during this time? While employed as a supervisor at an adventure playground, she observed a man making canoes nearby How did this man making canoes influence her? because he was married, put off talking to him; it was a year before he asked her for a date. What was this man's name? It was at a canoeing course she met her future second husband, Colin Broadway, who was the father of her fourth child, Elizabeth.
How old was she when they married?
How old was Sue Townsend when she married her future second husband Colin Broadway?
Townsend left school at the age of 14 and worked in a variety of jobs including packer for Birds Eye, a petrol station attendant and a receptionist. Working at a petrol station allowed her the chance to read between serving customers.  She married Keith Townsend, a sheet metal worker at 18; the couple had three children under five by the time Townsend was 23 (Sean, Daniel and Victoria), at which point the marriage ended and she became a single parent. In this position, Townsend and her children endured considerable hardship. In Mr Bevan's Dream: Why Britain Needs Its Welfare State (1989), a short book in the Counterblasts series, she recounts an experience from when her eldest child was five. Because the Department of Social Security was unable to give her even 50p to tide them over, she was obliged to feed herself and her children on a tin of peas and an Oxo cube as an evening meal. Townsend would collect used Corona bottles, to redeem the 4p return fee by which to feed her children.  Aged 13, her son questioned one Sunday why they didn't go to animal parks on weekends like other families. She later recounted that it was the start of her writing which became the Adrian Mole books, looking at life through the clinical eyes of a teenager but in a comedic manner. Townsend then chose to research the world of teenagers, and started attending youth clubs as a volunteer organiser. This led to her training as a youth worker.  While employed as a supervisor at an adventure playground, she observed a man making canoes nearby and, because he was married, put off talking to him; it was a year before he asked her for a date. It was at a canoeing course she met her future second husband, Colin Broadway, who was the father of her fourth child, Elizabeth. Subsequently, she became pregnant twice more, but underwent abortions. Ultimately, Townsend came to believe that termination is wrong. Ghost Children (1997) is a novel which draws on these experiences. CANNOTANSWER
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Susan Lillian Townsend, FRSL (née Johnstone, 2 April 194610 April 2014), was an English writer and humorist whose work encompasses novels, plays and works of journalism. She was best known for creating the character Adrian Mole.

After writing in secret from the age of 14, Townsend first became known for her plays, her signature character first appearing in a radio drama, but her work soon expanded into other forms. She enjoyed great success in the 1980s, with her Adrian Mole books selling more copies than any other work of fiction in Britain during the decade. This series, which eventually encompassed nine books, takes the form of the character's diaries. The earliest books recount the life of a teenage boy during the Thatcher years, but the sequence eventually depicts Adrian Mole in middle age.

The Queen and I (1992), another popular work which was well received, was an outlet for her republican sentiments, although the Royal Family is still rendered with sympathy. Both the earliest Adrian Mole book and The Queen and I were adapted for the stage and enjoyed successful runs in London's West End.

Townsend was poor until well into her thirties, and used her experiences of hardship in her work. In her later years she suffered ill health, in part related to the diabetes she developed in the mid-1980s, and in her last years endured serious sight and mobility problems.

Early life
Townsend was born at the Maternity Hospital in Causeway Lane, Leicester, the oldest of three sisters. Her father had worked at a factory making jet engines before becoming a postman, while her mother worked in a factory canteen. She attended Glen Hills Primary School, where the school secretary was Mrs Claricotes, a name she used for the school secretary in the Adrian Mole books.

At the age of eight, Townsend contracted mumps, and was obliged to stay at home. Her mother bought a collection of Richmal Crompton's Just William books at a jumble sale which Townsend read avidly. Later, she said the William Brown character was an influence on her best-known creation.

After failing her 11-plus exam, Townsend went to the secondary modern South Wigston High School. During her childhood, while up a tree playing with her peers, she witnessed the murder of a fellow schoolgirl, but the children were not believed. The murder was committed by Joseph Christopher Reynolds (31), convicted at Leicester Assizes for the murder of Janet Warner, and hanged by Albert Pierrepoint on 17 November 1953. It was to be the last execution carried out at Leicester Prison.

First marriage and pre-writing career
Townsend left school at the age of 14 and worked in a variety of jobs including packer for Birds Eye, a petrol station attendant and a receptionist. Working at a petrol station allowed her the chance to read between serving customers.

She married Keith Townsend, a sheet metal worker on 25 April 1964; the couple had three children under five by the time Townsend was 23 (Sean, Daniel, and Victoria). In 1971 the marriage ended and she became a single parent. In this position, Townsend and her children endured considerable hardship. In Mr Bevan's Dream: Why Britain Needs Its Welfare State (1989), a short book in the Counterblasts series, she recounts an experience from when her eldest child was five. Because the Department of Social Security was unable to give her even 50p to tide them over, she was obliged to feed herself and her children on a tin of peas and an Oxo cube as an evening meal. Townsend would collect used Corona bottles, to redeem the 4p return fee by which to feed her children.

Aged 13, her son questioned one Sunday why they didn't go to animal parks on weekends like other families. She later recounted that it was the start of her writing which became the Adrian Mole books, looking at life through the clinical eyes of a teenager but in a comedic manner. Townsend then chose to research the world of teenagers, and started attending youth clubs as a volunteer organiser. This led to her training as a youth worker.

While employed as a supervisor at an adventure playground, she observed a man making canoes nearby and, because he was married, put off talking to him; it was a year before he asked her for a date. It was at a canoeing course she met her future second husband, Colin Broadway, who was the father of her fourth child, Elizabeth.

Townsend and Broadway married on 13 June 1986.

Transition to a writing career
Townsend's new partner encouraged her to join a writers' group at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester, in 1978, when she was in her early thirties. Initially too shy to speak, she did not write anything for six weeks, but was then given a fortnight to write a play. This became the thirty-minute drama Womberang (1979), set in the waiting room of a gynaecology department. At the Phoenix, she became the writer-in-residence.

During this time she was mentored by several theatre directors including Ian Giles and principally Sue Pomeroy who commissioned and directed a number of her plays including Womberang, Dayroom, Groping for Words and subsequently Ear, Nose and Throat. She was also introduced to William Ash, then chairman of the Soho Poly (now Soho Theatre), who likewise played a significant part in shaping her early career. She met writer-director Carole Hayman on the stairs of the Soho Poly theatre and went on to develop many theatre pieces with her for the Royal Court and Joint Stock, including Bazarre and Rummage and The Great Celestial Cow. They later co-wrote two television series, The Refuge and The Spinney.

At the time of writing the first Adrian Mole book, Townsend was living on the Eyres Monsell Estate, near the house in which playwright Joe Orton was brought up. Mole "came into my head when my eldest son said 'Why don't we go to safari parks like other families do?' That's the only real line of dialogue from my family that's in any of the Mole books. It's in because it triggered it. I remembered that kind of whiny, adolescent self-pity, that 'surely these are not my parents.'"

Success of Adrian Mole
The first two published stories appeared in a short-lived arts' journal entitled magazine, in the editing and production of which Townsend was involved, featuring the character then still called Nigel Mole. Actor Nigel Bennett had given her help and encouragement to persist with the work and sent the script to John Tydeman, the deputy head of BBC Radio Drama. The character first came to national awareness in a single radio play, The Diary of Nigel Mole, Aged 13¼, broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on New Year's Day 1982.

Someone at the publishers Methuen heard the broadcast and commissioned Townsend to write the first book, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ which came out in September of  The publisher insisted on the change of name because of the similarity to Nigel Molesworth, the schoolboy character created by Ronald Searle and Geoffrey Willans. A month after the book's appearance it had topped the best seller list and had sold a million copies after a year. Adapted as a play, the stage version premiered in Leicester and ran at Wyndham's Theatre for more than two years. The first two books were seen by many as a realistic and humorous treatment of the inner life of an adolescent boy. They also captured something of the zeitgeist of Britain during the Thatcher era.

The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (1984) was reputedly based on her children's experiences at Mary Linwood Comprehensive School in Leicester. Several of the teachers who appear in the book (such as Ms Fossington-Gore and Mr Dock) are based on staff who worked at the school in the early 1980s. When the book was televised, it was mostly filmed at a different school nearby. Mary Linwood Comprehensive was closed in 1997.

These first two books were adapted into a television series, broadcast in 1985 and 1987, and a video game.

Later life and career
The Queen and I (1992) is a novel imagining that the Royal family have been rehoused in a council estate after a Republican revolution, although it turns out to have been merely the monarch's nightmare. Townsend had become a republican while a child. In an interview for The Independent published in September 1992 she related that after finding the idea of God a ridiculous idea, an argument in favour of the British monarchy also collapsed. "I was frightened that people believed in it all, the whole package, and I must be the only one with these feelings. It was a moment of revelation, but at the same time it would have been wicked ever to mention it." In addition, she was "being taught about infinity, which I found mind-boggling. It made me feel we were all tiny, tiny specks: and if I was, then they – the Royal Family – were, too."

Like the first Mole book, The Queen and I was adapted for the stage with songs by Ian Dury and Mickey Gallagher. Michael Billington writes that Townsend "was ahead of the game" in treating the royal family as a suitable subject for drama. He writes: "Far from seeming like a piece of republican propaganda, the play actually made the royals endearing." A later book in a similar vein, Queen Camilla (2006), was less well received.

On 25 February 2009, Leicester City Council announced that Townsend would be given the Honorary Freedom of Leicester (where she lived). Townsend became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 1993. Amongst her honours and awards, she received honorary doctorates from the University of Leicester, from Loughborough University and De Montfort University, Leicester.

In 1991 Townsend appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. Her chosen book was Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis and her luxury item was a swimming pool of champagne.

Political beliefs

In 1989 Townsend published Mr Bevan's Dream – Why Britain Needs its Welfare State, one of the series of Counterblast essays written by such authors as Paul Foot, Marina Warner and Fay Weldon which critiqued, either directly or indirectly the social consequences of Thatcherism.

She describes being "mesmerized" when seeing Aneurin Bevan, the prime mover of the British welfare state on television for the first time. The book consists of a series of short anecdotal stories which touch on ways in which the welfare and education systems of the day supported or (mostly) failed ordinary citizens. In "The Quick Birth", Townsend recalls the experience of giving birth to her first child, born prematurely but who survived thanks to the dedicated National Health Service staff at her local hospital in Leicester; "Community Care" deals with the treatment of vulnerable people with mental health issues; "Mr Smith's privatised penis", the final section, is a dystopian satire on a future where pavements, sunlight, fresh air and even lovemaking have been sold off to private enterprise.

"In this pamphlet, I have fallen back on the traditional working class method for expressing ideas – the anecdote, or what is now called the "oral tradition" (which is only a fancy term for working-class people talking to each other but not bothering to record what they've heard").

Townsend, in a 2009 Guardian interview with Alex Clark, described herself as a "passionate socialist" who had no time for New Labour. "I support the memory and the history of the party and I consider that these lot are interlopers", she told Clark. Despite these comments, Townsend said in 1999 that she had only voted Labour once, and in fact her preference was "Communist, Socialist Workers, or a minority party usually." The journalist Christina Patterson observed of Townsend in 2008: "Her heart, it's clear from her books and a few hours in her company, is still with the people she left behind, the people who go largely unchronicled in literature, the people who are still her friends."

Health problems
Townsend suffered ill health for several years. She was a chain smoker, had tuberculosis (TB), peritonitis at 23 and suffered a heart attack in her 30s. She developed diabetes in the 1980s. It was a condition with which she struggled, believing herself to be the "world's worst diabetic". The condition led to Townsend's being registered blind in 2001, and she wove this theme into her work.

After suffering kidney failure, she underwent dialysis and in September 2009 she received a kidney from her elder son Sean, after a two-year wait for a donor. She also had degenerative arthritis, which left her wheelchair-bound. By this time, she was dictating to Sean, who worked as her typist. Surgery was carried out at Leicester General Hospital and Townsend spoke to the BBC about her illness on an appeal for National Kidney Day.

Death
Townsend died at her home on 10 April 2014, eight days after her 68th birthday, following a stroke. Stephen Mangan, who portrayed Adrian Mole in the 2001 television adaptation, stated that he was "greatly upset to hear that Sue Townsend has died. One of the warmest, funniest and wisest people I ever met". Townsend was survived by her husband, four children and ten grandchildren.

Awards

Works

Adrian Mole series
 The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (1982), her best-selling book, and the best-selling new British fiction book of the 1980s.
 The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (1984)
 The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole (1989)
 Adrian Mole: From Minor to Major (1991) is an omnibus of the first three, and includes as a bonus the specially written Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians.
 Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (1993)
 Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (1999)
 Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004)
 The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999–2001 (2008)
 Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (2009)

Other novels
 Rebuilding Coventry (1988)
 The Queen and I (1992), a story about the British Royal Family living a "normal" life on an urban housing estate following a republican revolution.
 Ghost Children (1997), a novel treating the issues of bereavement, child abuse and women's self-esteem in relation to body image.
 Number Ten (2002)
 Queen Camilla (2006)
 The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year (2012)

Plays
 Womberang (Soho Poly – 1979)
 The Ghost of Daniel Lambert (Leicester Haymarket Theatre, 1981) Theatre closed in January 2006
 Dayroom (Croydon Warehouse Theatre, 1981)
 Captain Christmas and the Evil Adults (Phoenix Arts Theatre, 1982) now known as the Sue Townsend Theatre
 Bazaar and Rummage (Royal Court Theatre, 1982)
 Groping for Words (Croydon Warehouse, 1983)
 The Great Celestial Cow (Royal Court Theatre and tour, 1984)
 The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13-The Play (Leicester Phoenix, 1984) now known as Sue Townsend Theatre
 Ear Nose And Throat (National large scale tour Good Company Theatre Productions, 1988)
 Disneyland it Ain't (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 1989)
 Ten Tiny Fingers, Nine Tiny Toes (Library Theatre, Manchester, 1989)
 The Queen and I (Vaudeville Theatre, 1994; toured Australia in summer 1996 as The Royals Down Under)

Non-fiction
 Mr Bevan's Dream: Why Britain Needs Its Welfare State (1989)
 The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (2001)

Footnotes

External links

 Old Biography page
 Penguin Site
 British Council Contemporary Writers Site

1946 births
2014 deaths
Blind people from England
Blind writers
British republicans
English atheists
English children's writers
English humorists
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Kidney transplant recipients
People from Leicester
English women writers
British social commentators
20th-century English women writers
20th-century English novelists
20th-century English dramatists and playwrights
Women humorists
Karen Void (born c. 1939) is a 1978 National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame trick rider inductee.

Life
Karen Vold was born Karen Womack c. 1939, in Phoenix, Arizona. She is the daughter of ProRodeo Hall of Fame rodeo clown Andy Womack.

Vold's family owned a riding stable just north of Phoenix. She would guide visitors riding out in the desert. One of the ladies who worked in the stable owned a Palomino and a trick riding saddle. Vold learned her first three tricks from her. Vold's parents divorced when she was 8 years old. Her parents bought her a horse and saddle to help deal with the situation. She was about 10 years old, and she practiced trick riding on that horse. Her father ended up having to leave to rodeo as a clown for six years due to the death of rodeo clown Jasbo Fulkerson. Vold said "When he came back and saw how serious I was about trick riding, he sent me to Colorado to take lessons from world champion trick rider Dick Griffith."

After she turned 10 years old, she began learning trick riding. Vold competed in her first professional rodeo when she was 14 years old. She married Harry Vold in 1972; she was his second wife. They had one daughter, Kirsten, who runs the ranch now.

Career
Vold was a performing trick rider for 17 years. She assisted in forming "The Flying Cimarrons", which brought the event back into the spotlight many years. The formation of teams for trick riding was also innovative and enhanced the process of hiring riders. When Vold got married, she retired from performing. However, she still was involved in the sport through coaching and clinics. Then she helped run the ranch she owned with her hall of fame husband, Harry until his death in 2017. For 28 years she taught trick riding with one of her former students, Linda. They opened the Red Top Ranch Trick Riding School in Avondale near her ranch, about 20 miles from Pueblo, Colorado.

Honors
 1978 National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame
 1992 Tad Lucas Award - National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
 2016 Donita Barnes Award

References

External links
 Karen Womack Vold Interview for Rodeo Historical Society Oral History Project

People from Pueblo County, Colorado
People from Phoenix, Arizona
Trick riding
American female equestrians
Cowgirl Hall of Fame inductees "The Goose-Girl at the Well" (German: Die Gänsehirtin am Brunnen) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 179). It is Aarne-Thompson type 923 ('Love Like Salt').

Synopsis

An old woman raised geese in the mountains.  One day, speaking of her heavy burden, she persuaded a count to carry it for her up the mountain.  He found it burdensome, but she would not let him even rest.  When they arrived at the hut, there was an ugly girl tending the old woman's geese, but the old woman would not let them stay together, lest "he may fall in love with her".  Before the old woman sent the count away, she gave him a box cut out of an emerald as thanks for carrying her burden.

The count wandered the woods for three days before he arrived at a town where a king and queen reigned.  He showed them the box.  When the queen saw the box, she collapsed as if dead, and the count was led to a dungeon and kept there. When the queen woke, she insisted on speaking with him.  She told him that her youngest daughter had been a beautiful girl who wept pearls and jewels.  But one day, when the king had asked his three daughters how well they loved him, the youngest said that she loved him like salt. The king divided his kingdom between the two older girls and drove the youngest out, giving her only a sack of salt.  The king regretted this decision afterward, but the girl was never to be found again.

When the queen had opened the box, a pearl just like how her daughter's jewel tears looked like was in it.  The count told them where he had gotten the box, and the king and queen resolved to speak with the old woman.

Meanwhile, in the mountains, the ugly girl washed in a well by night.  She became a beautiful girl, though sad.  She returned to her usual form when the moonlight was blocked. When she returned to the hut, the old woman was cleaning the hut, although it was late.  The old woman told the girl that it had been three years, so they could stay no longer together. The girl was upset, and asked what would happen to her, but the old woman said that she was disrupting her work and sent her to wait in her room.

The count had gone with the king and queen but become separated.  He saw the ugly girl make herself beautiful and was entranced by her beauty.  He followed her, and met with the king and queen at the hut.  The old woman said to the king and queen that they could have spared themselves a walk if they had not been so unjust to their daughter. She led them in and told their daughter to come out of the room, and the family wept to see each other again.

The old woman disappeared and the hut became a castle. The count married the youngest princess, and they lived there ever afterward.

In popular culture

Television
 It was turned into a TV movie by Fernsehen Der DDR in East Germany in 1979.
 It was adapted as part of the TV series Simsala Grimm under a differently translated English title "The Two Princesses". However, the King Lear-esque backstory was changed to have the princess be cast out by her stepmother.

Music
 Based on the fairy tale, the German musical production ''Gans oder gar nicht!'' opened in 2015 at the Waldbühne Kloster Oesede in Georgsmarienhütte.

See also

Water and Salt
Cap O' Rushes
The Dirty Shepherdess
King Lear

References

External links
 
"Love Like Salt: folktales of types 923 and 510"

Goose-Girl at the Well
Goose-Girl at the Well, The
Goose-Girl at the Well, The