Adrian Albert Mole is the fictional protagonist in a series of books by English author Sue Townsend. The character first appeared (as Nigel) in a BBC Radio 4 play in 1982. The books are written in the form of a diary, with some additional content such as correspondence. The first two books appealed to many readers 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 period.

Themes[link]

The series has many themes. The first books concentrate on Adrian's desires and ambitions in life (to marry his teenage sweetheart, publish his poetry and novels, obtain financial security) and his complete failure to achieve them. The series satirises human pretensions, and especially, in the first couple of volumes, teenage pretensions.

The second theme is depiction of the social and political situation in Britain, with particular reference to left-wing politics in the 1980s in the first three books. For example, Mr and Mrs Mole's divorce reflects rising divorce rates in the 1980s, and living together unmarried was becoming a norm. Adrian's mother becomes a staunch feminist and briefly joins the Greenham Common campaigners. Pandora, Adrian's love interest, and her parents are part of an intellectualised and left-wing middle class that attempted to embrace the working class.

Humour arises from the outworking of larger social forces within a very ordinary household in a very ordinary part of Middle England.

The three latest books move in slightly new directions, showing Adrian as an adult in different environments. They are more focused on political satire, mainly examining New Labour, and in Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Iraq war. The intervening book, Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years, mixes these themes, with events such as the Gulf War seen from Adrian's naive and frustrated point of view, as well as depictions of his experiences of unemployment and public spending cutbacks, both major political issues at the time. In dealing with political events, a constant plot device is that Adrian makes confident predictions and statements that are known to be wrong by the reader, ranging from belief in the Hitler Diaries to an Iraqi victory in the Gulf War and Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Biography[link]

Adrian Albert Mole was born in 1967 and grew up with his parents in the city of Leicester in England's East Midlands. Adrian's family are largely unskilled working class/lower middle classes. He is an only child until the age of 15, when his polar opposite sister Rosie is born. Adrian is an average boy in many ways, not especially popular or sporty, but he does well enough at school and has friends. Deep inside, however, he perceives himself as a thwarted 'Great Writer', and spends years working on his novel, Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland, never to be published. Over several books, he developed a script for a white van comedy serial killer programme, which for some reason the BBC was reluctant to produce.

As a young man he moves to London and takes a job in a Soho restaurant catering to media types. London is going through a food-enthusiasm renaissance and offal is all the rage. Adrian is persuaded to feature in a television cookery programme called Offally Good!, supposedly to be a celebrity chef; although he is told the programme is a comedy, he typically fails to realise he is being set up as the stooge, the comic straight man.

Adrian ends up working in an antiquarian bookshop. Having lived in relative poverty for much of his life, and for some time in London in actual squalor, he overextends himself financially, lured by the banks' promises of easy credit, and buys a converted loft apartment.

Family[link]

The family is dysfunctional in a manner classic to comic settings. Adrian's parents Pauline and George Mole are working class characters with limited scope who drink and smoke a lot. They are both often unemployed, and have separated, divorced and remarried more than once, often resulting from extramarital affairs. In a reversal of a typical teenager-mother relationship, Pauline berates Adrian for keeping his room "like a bloody shrine". They move from Leicester to Ashby-de-la-Zouch with their dog (only ever referred to as "the dog", who is eventually replaced by "the new dog"). Adrian's paternal grandmother Edna May Mole is also prominent in the early diaries.

Adrian's sister, Rosie Germaine Mole (after feminist Germaine Greer), grows up to be rebellious and "street", in total contrast to Adrian. Despite opposing personalities, the siblings enjoy a close relationship, and Adrian often feels that she is the only family member who truly understands him. She also relies on him on occasion, and when she fell pregnant as a teenager Adrian supported her when she decided to have an abortion.

Pauline first leaves George for their neighbour Mr. Lucas, an insurance man; George fathers a second son, named Brett, by a lover called Doreen Slater (a.k.a. "Stick Insect"); both are soon forgotten, although Brett makes a reappearance in the later books as a successful yet unpleasant businessman who loses his fortune during the Credit Crunch. Pauline temporarily marries her much younger lodger Martin Muffet, who eventually leaves her for Adrian's girlfriend Bianca Dartington, giving Adrian and his mother a shared heartbreak. Later, George and Pauline effect a partner swap with Ivan and Tania Braithwaite (parents to Pandora), only to reunite after Ivan's untimely death.

Although there was some uncertainty over if George or Mr. Lucas fathered Rosie, the plot point was forgotten until The Prostrate Years when Lucas (who is now rich) gets back in touch in Rosie demanding a DNA test on The Jeremy Kyle Show. Although Adrian desperately tries to talk his mother and Rosie out of informing George or appearing on the show, they do and it is proven that Lucas is indeed Rosie's father. As Rosie's relationship with her parents started to break down before appearing on the show, she immediately moves in with him, starts calling him 'Dad' and referring to herself as 'Rosie Lucas'. As well as the truth of Rosie's paternity being revealed the show also casts some doubt on Adrian's when Pauline states that there is a 'seventy per-cent' chance that George is Adrian's father. Adrian notes that his mother told him about a maggot farmer she dated before she married George who wrote poetry. However Adrian decides not to pursue the issue, and thanks his father when he learns that George raised him single-handedly throughout the first year of his life while Pauline suffered postnatal depression.

Adrian fathers three children.

• Glenn Bott-Mole, son of Sharon Bott, whom Adrian fancied at school and had an affair with as a young man. Sharon represents the underclass end of British society.
• William Mole, the son of his first wife JoJo, a Nigerian princess. She divorces Adrian and moves back home, and eventually William joins her. He changes his Christian name from William to Wole to make it sound more African. (When he tells Adrian about this, he concludes his son is going to tire soon of his new name, Wole Mole. This is purely a visual joke, as Wole and Mole do not rhyme; Wole is pronounced wol-eh.)
• Gracie Mole, the daughter of his second wife Daisy (née Flowers), a smart, good-looking woman with whom he enjoyed great mutual attraction until their marriage broke down and she ran off with her rich employer.

Friends[link]

• Pandora Braithwaite is the love of Adrian's life. She is beautiful and intelligent, and as teenagers they are happy together. In the later books she shuns Adrian in favour of, by turns, physically and intellectually powerful men, though he remains attached to her. Adrian tends to devote a lot of his diary space to her, describing her current paramour and his flaws, and pining for their lost love. The smart, polyglot and extremely attractive Pandora becomes a rising star in New Labour under Tony Blair, i.e. one of Blair's Babes, until she opposes the Iraq War, as did some real-life Labour MPs.
• Bert Baxter, an old-age pensioner Adrian cares for. Despite the fact that Baxter is filthy, rude, a communist, and has a vicious Alsatian, Adrian becomes very fond of him. Bert died in 1997 aged 105, by falling down the stairs, despite having vowed not to die until he had seen the fall of capitalism.
• Nigel Hetherington is Adrian's on-and-off best chum who has a somewhat bohemian lifestyle. He moves to London and comes out as a gay man. In the last novel he is forced to move to his parents' granny flat, having become blind, as Townsend herself did. In the original TV series and in Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians, his name is given as Nigel Partridge.
• Barry "Baz" Kent is a skinhead who initially bullied Adrian and later became a "bad influence" upon him in his teen years. At the age of 16 he renounced racism and became a rabid anti-racist. At some point, Adrian discovered that Barry had a natural gift for poetry, which he encouraged him to develop. However, he bitterly regretted this when Barry became not only a successful poet, but author of a hit novel Dork's Diary which revolved around a loser called Aiden Vole (a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Adrian Mole books themselves). A lot of humour comes from the fact that Barry Kent, although seemingly ill-educated and rough-natured, succeeds on natural talent, which Adrian Mole clearly lacks. Adrian tries to turn his defeat into victory by creating a fictional character, the 'failed writer' Kent Barry, in a novel that is never published.
• Hamish Mancini is Adrian's American friend and penpal. They first met on Adrian's holiday to Loch Lomond, Scotland. In the second book, Hamish runs away from his home to come live with Adrian briefly. In The True Confessions of Adrian Mole, he asks Adrian to explain the British English terms in his diary, which means that Hamish somehow got hold of them. However, he sends them back. He reappears in The Lost Years.
• Sharon Bott[s] is Adrian's second girlfriend and the mother of his first child. She is introduced in Growing Pains as the girl who “will show everything for 50p and a pound of grapes”, but Adrian is disappointed after being set up on a date with her by Nigel. In True Confessions, Adrian has lost his virginity with Sharon, but it is obvious that neither of them has any other interest in the other beyond sex. By this time Sharon has started putting on weight, and she is referred to as overweight in the later books. After it is proven that Adrian fathered Glenn in Cappuccino Years, Sharon re-enters Adrian’s life; they maintain a good relationship as parents of Glenn.
• Bernard Hopkins is a strange, eccentric and frequently drunk man who Adrian calls in (in The Prostate Years) to look after the bookshop due to both Mr Carlton-Hayes and his own frequent absences due to illness. Adrian notes that Bernard is an expert with antique books but isn't very pleasant to customers, to the point where he has been blacklisted from working at any Waterstones or Borders. He invites himself to Christmas dinner at Adrian's home and refuses to leave until Adrian has recovered from his prostate cancer, taking up permanent residence. Adrian and Bernard become close friends during Bernard's stay at The Piggeries, helping Adrian with household chores and a friendly ear.

The False Ending and Future[link]

Townsend announced at the time of publication that Adrian Mole - The Weapons of Mass Destruction would be the last book of the series due to her poor health. The series is resolved in the following ways:

• Adrian suffers an emotional crisis after the death of Robert Stainforth, his son Glenn's best friend in the Iraq War; he realises that the war, which he had supported passionately, was fought for bogus reasons; and he faces financial ruin, he has only ever had poorly paid employment, such as working as an offal cook in a fashionable London restaurant. He comes to recognise that he has lived in a dream world and is forced to confront reality.
• Adrian's job in the antiquarian bookstore allows him some stability. His employer, the gentle and unbullying Mr. Carlton-Hayes, hints that he wants him to run the shop after he has retired.
• Adrian's financial nadir passes in an unspecified way, and he is able to get on with his life. (It is left to the reader to decide if he declared bankruptcy or came to a long-term arrangement with his creditors or was rescued by the equity in his Rat Wharf flat; however, it is revealed that he no longer has his car, which was presumably sold to cover some of the debts.)
• Adrian begins a serious relationship (eventually leading to marriage, although the actual wedding is not chronicled) with Daisy Flowers, his secret love of most of the book, and fathers a daughter called Gracie. They enjoy a happy, fulfilling relationship.
• His father, who has become wheelchair-bound, his mother and Animal (his real name), who has assisted them in converting two pigsties into living quarters (one of which Adrian, Daisy and Gracie live in at the end of the book) live together in a consensual ménage à trois.
• Pandora continues as an MP (albeit a blackballed one), and says that despite their insurmountable differences, she still likes Adrian very much. After all these years, he is the only person she can talk to freely. In her autobiography Out of the Box, she describes him as her first romantic interest and gives an unflattering, but honest, account of his shortcomings.
• In the last entry, Adrian concludes that keeping a diary is only for unhappy people. Daisy then asks why he is starting one again. Adrian says he wants to start an autobiography but she says that other people will find him uninteresting.

As the diary ends, the whole decades-spanning Mole Saga seems to come to a ragged but hopeful conclusion.

In an interview on Leicester hospital station Radio Fox on 5 June 2008, Townsend said that she was in fact writing a new Mole book entitled The Prostrate Years. Townsend said that the book was likely to be published in Spring 2009. Penguin listed a 'new Adrian Mole' among their highlights for books to be released in 2009. The book retailer Amazon has since listed the book and audio CD of 'The Prostrate Years' as available for purchase, with a release date of November 5, 2009. In October 2009 the Leicester Mercury featured an interview with Townsend where she discussed the new Mole book and her (prospective) plans for future works.^[1]

Townsend has stated in letters to her fans that she is working on a new Adrian Mole book, due for release in November 2013.

List of books featuring Adrian Mole[link]

• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (1982)
• The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (1985)
• The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole (1989)
• 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)

Two overlapping compilations exist. The first two books are repackaged in one volume, and Adrian Mole: The Lost Years includes The True Confessions and The Wilderness Years, as well as a bonus not available separately, "Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians". Adrian Mole From Minor to Major (i.e. from being a child to the years of the John Major government) is a compilation of the first three books and "Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians".

The table below details the title of each novel and the time period covered by Mole's entries:

Timeline[link]

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 from:1981 till:1982.255 text:"Aged 13¾"
 from:1982.255 till:1983.419 text:"Growing Pains"
 from:1984.98 till:1989.54 text:"True Confessions"
 from:1989.54 till:1991 text:"Small Amphibians"
 from:1991 till:1992.29 text:"Wilderness Years"
 from:1994.900 till:1994.990 text:"Mole Cooks His Goose (Radio Times)"
 from:1997.329 till:1998.334 text:"Cappuccino Years"
 from:1999.904 till:2001.899 text:"The Lost Diaries"
 from:2002.762 till:2004.639 text:"Weapons of Mass Destruction"
 from:2007.419 till:2008.342 text:"Prostrate Years"
 from:2011.412 till:2011.415 text:"Adrian Mole's Royal Wedding"

</timeline>

Other media[link]

• The character originated in a Thirty-Minute Theatre play on BBC Radio 4 called "The Diary of Nigel Mole, Aged 13¼", broadcast on 2 January 1982, with Nicholas Barnes as Nigel.^[2] The first name was changed to Adrian in the subsequent book as the original was thought to be too close to that of the satirical character in children's literature Nigel Molesworth (whom Sue Townsend said she had previously not heard of). The phrase "Adrian's mole" is found in the poem "The Bells of Shandon" by Francis Sylvester Mahony ("Father Prout"), and refers to the Roman emperor Hadrian's tomb (Castel Sant'Angelo).
• The books spawned three TV series. The first, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾, was made by Thames Television for the ITV network and broadcast between 16 September and 21 October 1985. It starred Gian Sammarco as Adrian Mole with Julie Walters playing his mother. The sequel, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole was broadcast between 5 January and 9 February 1987 with Lulu replacing Julie Walters as Adrian's mother. Adrian Mole: the Cappuccino Years was broadcast on BBC One between 2 February and 9 March 2001, starring Stephen Mangan as Adrian Mole, Alison Steadman as Pauline Mole and Helen Baxendale as Pandora Braithwaite.
• The character also featured in several radio series, such as Pirate Radio Four in 1985.
• A stage musical was written by Sue Townsend in 1984 of the first book - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾: The Play with music and lyrics by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley. It starred Simon Schatzberger as Adrian Mole and Sheila Steafel as Pauline Mole. It was first performed at Phoenix Arts, Leicester and went to Wyndham's Theatre, London in December 1984.
• The first two books were adapted into computer adventure games by Level 9 Computing in the 1980s.
• It has become a regular play among the world, e.g., the Roo Theatre in Australia
• A less well-known chapter of Adrian's life was chronicled in a weekly column called Diary of a Provincial Man, which ran in The Guardian from December 1999 ^[3] to November 2001.^[4] This material was published as The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001. Set contemporaneously, as all the diaries are, it fills in two of the gap years between Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years and Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction. Adrian spends this period living on a crime-ridden council estate with his sons, has an on-off romance with a woman named Pamela Pigg, and temporarily works in a lay-by trailer cafe. He befriends yet another pensioner who subsequently dies, and has a brief infatuation with his male therapist (which he insists is wholly spiritual, not homosexual). The series includes comment on the petrol crisis of 2000, the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terrorism. Adrian's illegitimate half-brother Brett Mole, born on 5 August 1982, is reintroduced as a 19 year-old; he is an athletic, popular, confident, promiscuous, super-intelligent Oxford undergraduate, already a published poet and TV documentarian - in short, the person Adrian always wanted to be. Brett's mediocre older sibling soon comes to regard him with envious loathing. In what was apparently supposed to be a retrospectively-written preface to the re-published Diaries, Mole notes their re-publication in novel-form and suggests that Townsend is impersonating him and profiting from his writings. He also claims that his life is still not as happy as he would like, but 'that is another story' - suggesting that there is another diary to come.
• To mark the royal wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton, Sue Townsend wrote an exclusive Adrian Mole story for the Observer in 2011.

Although the period on a sink council estate is referred to briefly in The Cappuccino Years, the events of Diary of a Provincial Man are perhaps not strictly canonical. For example, Adrian later states that he can count the women he has had carnal knowledge of "on the fingers of one hand". Those women would be: Sharon Bott, Bianca Dartington, JoJo Mole, Marigold and Daisy Flowers. Inserting Pamela Pigg into this list makes six - more than the fingers of one hand, unless Adrian is polydactyl. The third wedding of Adrian's parents is described; however, Ivan Braithwaite does not drown whilst on honeymoon with Pauline Mole as detailed in "The Weapons of Mass Destruction" - instead he ultimately returns to his first wife, prompting George and Pauline to reunite (in "The Weapons of Mass Destruction", Pandora states that Pauline lured George away from Tania in the wake of Ivan's death). Also, Adrian's ex-wife JoJo e-mails him from Nigeria and names her new husband as one Colonel Ephat Mapfumo. In The Cappuccino Years, her husband's name is Wole.

• An even less well-known chapter of Adrian's life appeared in the Christmas 1994 edition of the Radio Times. Titled "Mole Cooks his Goose" it covered a stay by Adrian and Jojo at his mother's house over Christmas. It has never been republished.

Continuity errors[link]

• Adrian's birth year is usually given as 1967 (as in Aged 13¾, Growing Pains, Wilderness Years, Cappuccino Years) but sometimes as 1968 (True Confessions, Weapons of Mass Destruction). In Prostrate Years, Adrian's surprise 40th birthday party is celebrated on April 2, 2008.
• According to the final chapter of From Minor to Major, Sharon Bott was three months pregnant in July 1989, meaning that Glenn Bott-Mole was born around January 1990. On Christmas Eve 1990 Adrian meets Glenn for the first time, describing him as "a strange-looking moon-headed toddler." But in Cappuccino Years, set in 1997, Glenn is twelve years old, when consistency would require him to be only seven. Also, Glenn's thirteenth birthday falls in April 1998, not January. This makes Adrian seventeen at the time of Glenn's conception in July 1984, and Sharon, who was in Adrian's year at school, so was born between 1 September 1966 and 31 August 1967, was either seventeen or close to her 17th birthday. The final word comes from Weapons of Mass Destruction, where Glenn is seventeen and joins the Army in 2002. This agrees with his age in the previous book. So Glenn's birthdate changes from January 1990 to April 1985.
• In Cappuccino Years William is cited as turning 3 years old in 1997, yet in The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole 1999-2001 at the start of the book Adrian says he is 7 years old. Which doesn't fall in with the info given in the previous book.
• In Growing Pains, Rosie is born on 11 November 1982. However, by the start of the Cappuccino Years (May 1997), it is implied that she is fifteen years old and about to take her GCSEs and leave school, when she should be fourteen years old and have two years to go before her GCSEs. Later in Cappuccino Years, in October 1997, Adrian mentions that Rosie is still at school (as she should be, going by her birthdate in the Growing Pains).
• In Growing Pains the tyrannical headmaster of Adrian's school, "Pop-Eye" Scruton, retires on the grounds of ill health. But in True Confessions, he is still Adrian's headmaster.
• Bert Baxter celebrates his 90th birthday on 29 May 1983, meaning that he was born on 29 May 1893. In The Cappucino Years, in 1997, it is said that he died a day before his 106th birthday; however, in 1997 he would celebrate his 104th birthday. In the same chapter, 9 May is referred as his birthday. However, Bert does state in Growing Pains that he is uncertain whether it is in fact his 90th birthday or not.
• In Prostrate Years Adrian states “I only got a C grade in GCSE biology”. GCSE's are typically take the summer after a student's 16th birthday, but GCSE's did not replace O Levels and CSE's until June 1987, when Adrian would have been too old to take them.
• At the end of Weapons of Mass Destruction Adrian's father must use a wheelchair after contracting a virus while in hospital for a back operation, but at the start of Prostrate Years the reason for his disability is given as a stroke brought on by years of poor dietary habits and inactivity.
• Several characters' names change:
  • In Growing Pains, Barry Kent's mother's name is Ida, but in Cappuccino Years she is called Edna.
  • Sharon Bott was called Sharon Botts in the early books.
  • Nigel's surname is given as Partridge in True Confessions but in the later books it is Hetherington.
  • Adrian's paternal grandfather's name alternates between Albert and Arnold.
  • Pauline Mole's middle name is given as Monica; later, in The Prostrate Years, it's given as Hilda.

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Sue Townsend Archive held at the University of Leicester Library
• Official website
• A comprehensive study of the non-dramatic work of Sue Townsend
• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ at the Internet Movie Database
• Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years at the Internet Movie Database
• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole at the Internet Movie Database (In Development)

Ian Dury
Live at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London 1978
Background information
Birth name	Ian Robins Dury
Born	(1942-05-12)12 May 1942 Harrow, Middlesex, England, UK
Died	27 March 2000(2000-03-27) (aged 57) Upminster, London, England, UK
Genres	Rock and roll revival, protopunk, New Wave, funk
Occupations	Singer, lyricist, actor
Instruments	Vocals, drums
Years active	1971–2000
Labels	Dawn, Stiff, Polydor, Demon, Ronnie Harris
Associated acts	The Blockheads, Kilburn & the High Roads
Website	IanDury.com
Music sample
"Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" noicon

Ian Robins Dury (12 May 1942 – 27 March 2000) was an English rock and roll singer, lyricist, bandleader, artist, and actor who initially rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and New Wave era of rock music. He is best known as founder and lead singer of the British band Ian Dury and the Blockheads, who were one of the groups of the New Wave era in the UK.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Dury was born in north-west London at his parents' home at 43 Weald Rise, Harrow Weald, Harrow (although he often pretended that he had been born in Upminster, Havering and indeed all but one of his obituaries in the national press stated this).^[1] His father, William George Dury (born 23 September 1905, Southborough, Kent; died 25 February 1968), was a bus driver and former boxer, while his mother Margaret (known as "Peggy", born Margaret Cuthbertson Walker, 17 April 1910, Rochdale, Lancashire) was a health visitor, the daughter of a Cornish doctor, and granddaughter of an Irish landowner.

William Dury trained with Rolls-Royce to be a chauffeur, and was then absent for long periods, so Peggy Dury took Ian to stay with her parents in Cornwall. After the Second World War, the family moved to Switzerland, where his father chauffeured for a millionaire and the Western European Union. In 1946 Peggy brought Ian back to England and they stayed with her sister, Mary, a physician in Cranham, a small village bordering Upminster. Although he saw his father on visits, they never lived together again.^[2]

At the age of seven, he contracted polio; very likely, he believed, from a swimming pool at Southend on Sea during the 1949 polio epidemic. After six weeks in a full plaster cast in Truro hospital, he was moved to Black Notley Hospital, Braintree, Essex, where he spent a year and a half before going to Chailey Heritage Craft School, East Sussex, in 1951. Chailey was a school and hospital for disabled children, and believed in toughening them up, contributing to the observant and determined person Dury became.^[3] Chailey taught trades such as cobbling and printing, but Dury's mother wanted him to be more academic, so his aunt Moll arranged for him to enter the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe where he recounted being punished for misdemeanours by being made to learn long tracts of poetry until a housemaster found him sobbing and put a stop to it:

I had to go into a box room where the suitcases were stored and learn 80 lines of Ode to Autumn by yer man Keats. If I got a word wrong I had to go back, they added that to the end of the sentence and after five nights of this my head had definitely gone.^[4]

He left the school at the age of 16 to study painting at Walthamstow Art College,^[5] having gained GCE 'O' Levels in English Language, English Literature and Art.^[6]

From 1964 he studied art at the Royal College of Art under British artist Peter Blake, and in 1967 took part in a group exhibition, Fantasy and Figuration, alongside Pat Douthwaite, Herbert Kitchen and Stass Paraskos at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.^[7] When asked why he did not pursue a career in art, he said, "I got good enough [at art] to realise I wasn't going to be very good."^{[citation needed]} From 1967 he taught art at various colleges in the south of England.^[8] He also painted commercial illustrations for The Sunday Times in the early 1970s.

Dury married his first wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Rathmell (born 12 August 1942, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire), on 3 June 1967 and they had two children, Jemima (born 4 January 1969, Hounslow, Middlesex) and the recording artist Baxter Dury.^[8] Dury divorced Rathmell in 1985, but remained on good terms. He also cohabited with a teenage fan, Denise Roudette,^[8] for six years after he moved to London.

Kilburn & the High Roads[link]

Dury formed Kilburn & the High Roads (a reference to the road in North West London) in November 1970.^[9] Dury was vocalist and lyricist, co-writing with pianist Russell Hardy and later enrolling into the group a number of the students he was teaching at Canterbury College of Art, including guitarist Keith Lucas (who later became the guitarist for 999 under the name Nick Cash) and bassist Humphrey Ocean. Managed first by Charlie Gillett and Gordon Nelki and latterly by fashion entrepreneur Tommy Roberts, the Kilburns found favour on London's pub rock circuit and signed to Dawn Records in 1974, but despite favourable press coverage and a tour opening for The Who, the group failed to rise above cult status and disbanded in 1975.

The Blockheads[link]

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Live at The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London, 1978

Under the management of Andrew King and Peter Jenner, the original managers of Pink Floyd, Ian Dury and the Blockheads quickly gained a reputation as one of the top live acts of New Wave music. They built up a dedicated following in the UK and other countries and scored several hit singles, including "What a Waste", "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" (which was a UK number one at the beginning of 1979, selling just short of a million copies), "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3" (number three in the UK in 1979), and the rock and roll anthem "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll". (Although it is sometimes claimed that Dury coined the phrase, there is evidence that it was already in common use and a virtually identical wording was used by Australian band Daddy Cool for the title of their second album Sex, Dope & Rock'n'Roll: Teenage Heaven, released in 1972.^[10]) The tune is based on part of Charlie Haden's bass solo on "Ramblin'" on Ornette Coleman's 1959 album Change of the Century.

Live at The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London, 1978

Dury's lyrics are a distinctive combination of lyrical poetry, word play, observation of British everyday (working-class) life, acute character sketches, and vivid, earthy sexual humour. "This is what we find ... [H]ome improvement expert Harold Hill of Harold Hill, Of do-it-yourself dexterity and double-glazing skill, Came home to find another gentleman's kippers in the grill, So he sanded off his winkle with his Black & Decker drill." The song "Billericay Dickie" continues this sexual content, rhyming "I had a love affair with Nina, In the back of my Cortina" with "A seasoned-up hyena Could not have been more obscener".

The Blockheads' sound drew from its members' diverse musical influences, which included jazz, rock and roll, funk, and reggae, and Dury's love of music hall. The band was formed after Dury began writing songs with pianist and guitarist Chaz Jankel (the brother of noted music video, TV, commercial and film director Annabel Jankel). Jankel took Dury's lyrics, fashioned a number of songs, and they began recording with members of Radio Caroline's Loving Awareness Band—drummer Charley Charles (born Hugh Glenn Mortimer Charles, Guyana 1945), bassist Norman Watt-Roy, keyboard player Mick Gallagher, guitarist John Turnbull – and former Kilburns saxophonist Davey Payne. An album was completed, but major record labels passed on the band. However, next door to Dury's manager's office was the newly formed Stiff Records, a perfect home for Dury's maverick style. Their classic single "Sex & Drugs & Rock and Roll" marked Dury's Stiff debut and although it was banned by the BBC it was named Single of the Week by NME on its release.^[11] It was soon followed by the album New Boots and Panties!!, which was eventually to achieve platinum status.

In October 1977 Dury and his band started performing as Ian Dury & the Blockheads, when the band signed on for the Stiff "Live Stiffs Tour" alongside Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric, and Larry Wallis. The tour was a success, and Stiff launched a concerted Ian Dury marketing campaign, resulting in the Top Ten hit, "What a Waste", and the classic hit single, "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick", which reached #1 in the UK, was notably not included on the original release of their subsequent LP Do It Yourself. Both the single and its accompanying music video featured Davey Payne playing two saxophones simultaneously during his solo, in evident homage to jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, whose 'trademark' technique this was.

The band's second album Do It Yourself was released in June 1979 in a Barney Bubbles-designed sleeve of which there were over a dozen variations, all based on samples from the Crown wallpaper catalogue. Bubbles also designed the Blockhead logo which received international acclaim,^[12] and continued to be used by the Blockheads after Dury's death, e.g. on their DVD: Live in Colchester 2004.

Jankel left the band temporarily and relocated to the U.S. after the release of "What A Waste" (his organ part on that single was overdubbed later) but he subsequently returned to the UK and began touring sporadically with the Blockheads, eventually returning to the group full-time for the recording of "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick"; according to Mickey Gallagher, the band recorded 28 takes of the song but eventually settled on the second take for the single release. Partly due to personality clashes with Dury,^[11] Jankel quit the group again in 1980, after the recording of the Do It Yourself LP, and he returned to the USA to concentrate on his solo career. The group worked solidly over the eighteen months between the release of "Rhythm Stick" and their next single, "Reasons To Be Cheerful", which returned them to the charts, making the UK Top 10. Jankel was replaced by former Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson, who also contributed to the next album Laughter and its two minor hit singles, although Gallagher recalls that the recording of the Laughter album was difficult and that Dury was drinking heavily in this period.^[11] In 1980–81 Dury and Jankel teamed up again with Sly and Robbie and the Compass Point All Stars to record Lord Upminster. The Blockheads toured the U.K and Europe throughout 1981, sometimes augmented by jazz legend Don Cherry on trumpet, ending the year with their only tour of Australia.^[13] The Blockheads disbanded in early 1982 after Dury secured a new recording deal with Polydor Records through A&R man Frank Neilson. Choosing to work with a group of young musicians which he named The Music Students, he recorded the album Four Thousand Weeks' Holiday. This album marked a departure from his usual style and was not as well received by fans for its American jazz influence.

The Blockheads briefly reformed in June 1987 to play a short tour of Japan, and then disbanded again. In September 1990, following the death from cancer of drummer Charley Charles, they reunited for two benefit concerts in aid of Charles' family, held at The Forum, Camden Town, with Steven Monti on drums. In December 1990, augmented by Merlin Rhys-Jones on guitar and Will Parnell on percussion, they recorded the live album Warts & Audience at the Brixton Academy.^[13]

The Blockheads (minus Jankel, who returned to California) toured Spain in January 1991, then disbanded again until August 1994 when, following Jankel's return to England, they were invited to reform for the Madstock Festival in Finsbury Park; this was followed by sporadic gigs in Europe, Ireland, the U.K. and Japan through late 1994 and 1995.^[13] In the early 1990s, Dury appeared with English band Curve on the benefit compilation album Peace Together. Dury and Curve singer Toni Halliday shared vocals on a cover of the Blockheads' track "What a Waste".

In March 1996 Dury was diagnosed with cancer and, after recovering from an operation, he set about writing another album. In early 1998 he reunited with the Blockheads to record the well-received album Mr Love-Pants. In May, Ian Dury & the Blockheads hit the road again, with Dylan Howe replacing Steven Monti on drums. Davey Payne left the group permanently in August and was replaced by Gilad Atzmon; this amended line-up gigged throughout 1999, culminating in their last performance with Ian Dury on 6 February 2000 at the London Palladium. Dury died six weeks later on 27 March 2000.^[13]

The Blockheads have continued after Dury's death, contributing to the tribute album Brand New Boots And Panties, then Where's The Party. The Blockheads still tour, and are currently recording a new album. They currently comprise Jankel, Watt-Roy, Gallagher, Turnbull, John Roberts on drums, Gilad Atzmon and Dave Lewis on saxes. Derek The Draw (who was Dury's friend and minder) is now writing songs with Jankel as well as singing. They are aided and abetted by Lee Harris, who is their 'aide de camp'.

Spasticus Autisticus[link]

Dury's 1981 song "Spasticus Autisticus"—written to show his disdain for that year's International Year of Disabled Persons, which he saw as patronising and counter-productive—was banned by the BBC. Dury was a disabled person himself, having been left crippled by childhood polio. The lyrics were uncompromising:

So place your hard-earned peanuts in my tin

And thank the Creator you're not in the state I'm in

So long have I been languished on the shelf

I must give all proceedings to myself

The song's refrain, "I'm spasticus, autisticus" was inspired by the response of the rebellious Roman gladiators in the film Spartacus, who, when instructed to identify their leader, all answered, "I am Spartacus", to protect him. According to Professor George McKay, in a 2009 article in Popular Music called 'Crippled with nerves' (an early Dury song title):

Ian Dury, that ‘flaw of the jungle’, produced a remarkable and sustained body of work that explored issues of disability, in both personal and social contexts, institutionalisation, and to a lesser extent the pop cultural tradition of disability. He also, with the single ‘Spasticus Autisticus’ (1981), produced one of the outstanding protest songs about the place of disabled people in what he called ‘normal land’.^[14]

Acting and other activities[link]

Dury in concert

Dury's confident and unusual demeanour caught the eyes of producers and directors of drama. His first important and extensive role was in Farrukh Dhondy's mini-series for the BBC, King of the Ghetto (1987), a drama set in London's multi-racial Brick Lane area with a cast led by a young Tim Roth. Dury had small parts in several films, probably the most well-known of which was Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, as well as cameo appearances in Roman Polanski's Pirates and the Sylvester Stallone science fiction film Judge Dredd. He also made an appearance in the film Split Second starring Rutger Hauer and Kim Catrell

Dury also wrote a musical, Apples, staged in London's Royal Court Theatre. He had a small supporting role in The Crow: City of Angels, directed by Tim Pope, who had directed a few of Dury's music videos. He also appeared alongside fellow lyricists Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, respectively, in the movies Hearts of Fire (1987) and Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale (1989). In 1987 he appeared as the narrator (Scullery) in Road at the Royal Court Theatre. Among the cast was actress and singer Jane Horrocks, who cohabited with Dury until late in 1988, although the relationship was kept discreet.^[15]

Dury wrote and performed the theme song "Profoundly in Love with Pandora" for the television series The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (1985), based on the book of the same name by Sue Townsend, as well as its follow-up, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (1987). Dury turned down an offer from Andrew Lloyd Webber to write the libretto for Cats (from which Richard Stilgoe reportedly earned millions). The reason, said Dury, "I can't stand his music."^[16] "... I said no straight off. I hate Andrew Lloyd Webber. He's a wanker, isn't he? ... [E]very time I hear 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina' I feel sick, it's so bad. He got Richard Stilgoe to do the lyrics in the end, who's not as good as me. He made millions out of it. He's crap, but he did ask the top man first!"^[17]

When AIDS first came to prominence in the mid-1980s, Dury was among celebrities who appeared on UK television to promote safe sex, demonstrating how to put on a condom using a model of an erect penis. In the 1990s, he became an ambassador for UNICEF, recruiting stars such as Robbie Williams to publicise the cause. The two visited Sri Lanka in this capacity to promote polio vaccination. Dury appeared with Curve on the Peace Together concert and CD (1993), performing "What a Waste", with benefits to the Youth of Northern Ireland. He also supported the charity Cancer BACUP.

Dury appeared in the Classic Albums episode that focused on Steely Dan's album, Aja. Dury commented that the album was one of the most "hopeful" he'd ever heard, and that the album "lifted [his] spirits up" whenever he played it. He also felt that it showed Steely Dan's love for jazz musicians and that it had "California in its blood...[even though it was recorded by] boys from New York."

Dury also appeared at the end of the Carter USM track 'Skywest & Crooked' narrating from the book Don Quixote. The track appeared on 1992 – The Love Album.

Illness[link]

It was known for some time before his death that Dury had cancer. He was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 1996 and underwent surgery, but tumours were later found in his liver, and he was told that his condition was terminal. Upon learning of his illness Dury took the opportunity to marry his girlfriend, sculptress Sophy Tilson, with whom he had two children, Billy and Albert.

In 1998, his death was incorrectly announced on XFM radio by Bob Geldof, possibly due to hoax information from a listener.

In 1999, Dury collaborated with Madness on their first original album in fourteen years on the track "Drip Fed Fred". Suggs and the band cite him as a great influence. It was to be one of his last recordings.

Ian Dury & The Blockheads' last performance was a charity concert in aid of Cancer BACUP on 6 February 2000 at The London Palladium, supported by Kirsty MacColl and Phill Jupitus. Dury was noticeably ill and had to be helped on and off stage.

Death[link]

Dury died of metastatic colorectal cancer on 27 March 2000, aged 57. An obituary in The Guardian read: "one of few true originals of the English music scene".^[16] Meanwhile, he was described by Suggs, the singer of Madness, as "possibly the finest lyricist we've seen." The Ian Dury website opened an online book of condolence shortly after his death, which was signed by hundreds of fans. The 250 mourners at his funeral included fellow musicians Suggs and Jools Holland as well as other "celebrity fans" such as MP Mo Mowlam.

Legacy[link]

Ian Dury Memorial Bench in Richmond Park, south-west London

Dury's son, Baxter Dury, is also a singer. He sang a few of his father's songs at the wake after the funeral, and has released his own albums – Len Parrot's Memorial Lift, Floor Show and Happy Soup.

In 2002, a "musical bench" was placed in a favoured viewing spot of Dury's, Poet's Corner, near Pembroke Lodge, within Richmond Park, south-west London (see map at the Richmond Gate). This solar powered seat was intended to allow visitors to plug in and listen to eight of his songs as well as an interview, but has been subjected to repeated vandalism.

In 2009, a musical about his life entitled Hit Me! The Life & Rhymes of Ian Dury, was premiered at the Leicester Square Theatre in London, running from 6 January-14 February 2009.^[18]

Principal photography for the biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll began in May 2009.^[19] Starring Andy Serkis as Dury, the film was released on 8 January 2010. Ray Winstone and Naomie Harris also appeared.

A musical, Reasons to be Cheerful, was produced by the Graeae Theatre Company in association with Theatre Royal Stratford East and New Wolsey Theatre. Set in 1979 the musical featured Dury classics in a "riotous coming-of-age tale". The 2010 production was supported by the Blockheads, while Sir Peter Blake, donated a limited edition print of the Reasons to be Cheerful artwork.^[20]

Discography[link]

See also[link]

• Barney Bubbles
• Stiff Records
• Bus Driver's Prayer
• Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (film)

Quotations[link]

NME – December 1977^[21]

NME – June 1979^[22]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Guinness Book of British Hit Singles 7th Edition
• George McKay (2009). '"Crippled with nerves": popular music and polio, with particular reference to Ian Dury'. Popular Music vol. 28:3, pp. 341–365.
• Will Birch (2011). Ian Dury: The Definitive Biography

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ian Dury

• Official website
• theblockheads.com: The Blockheads' Biography
• theblockheads.com: The Blockheads' Discography
• New Ian Dury Biography by Will Birch
• Guardian obituary for Ian Dury
• Jools Holland biography of Ian Dury (archived 2003)
• BBC News website report on Dury's funeral
• BBC Music artist biography
• Dury's obituary in The Times
• 17 August 1998 interview with The Independent ("Ian Dury: Great sense of tumour")
• Institute for Performing Arts Development
• BBC iPlayer Desert Island Discs, 31 March 1996