The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole some detail. The book also contains extracts from Sue Townsend's own diaries together with some of her essays, plus a collection of entries from an unknown teenage girl's diary written in the 1930s in Grantham. Townsend suggests that the girl was called Margaret Hilda Roberts and no one knows what became of her, although most readers will spot that this is a strong and bitter satire about Margaret Thatcher (Margaret Hilda Roberts was her maiden name). Townsend originally created this satire in the first few issues of the newspaper "Today", as "The Secret Diary of Margaret Hilda Roberts Aged 13".
Bad Boyes an anonymous schoolboy's many schemes, dodges and scrapes. When the Eldridges met with the BBC about developing the concept into a children's comedy series, they came up with a name for the character and fleshed out the scenario for the television series. The actual diary framing device element was dropped early on in the show's planning stages, due in part to avoid comparisons with the very successful "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾" books and television series, as well as it being felt that the diary sections simply weren't required for the format of the television series. Although