Mr Bevan’s Dream

The funeral of Sue Townsend began today with a public celebration of her life at De Montfort Hall. The service opened with a moving eulogy delivered by the humanist celebrant, Nicci Gerrard, and included tributes from school friends, the city mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, Sue’s literary agent, and Chris Stafford from Curve, representing Leicester’s Theatres.

As well as the tributes, and music, the service featured extracts from Townsend’s works including a heartfelt reading by actor Tony Howes of the hilarious ‘Noddy’s wallpaper’ section from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole 13 3/4.

Probably the least well known work included in the service was an extended section from the non-fiction Mr Bevan’s Dream, read by Stephan Mangan. The piece, ‘1975: Gary, Daz, & Craig’ concerned three teenage boys who were illiterate despite eleven years of compulsory education, and was a critique of the comprehensive education system.

Mr Bevan’s Dream (1989) was published in the Chatto CounterBlasts series, a worthy initiative by the publisher to revive the tradition of pamphleteering by inviting writers and thinkers to ‘confront the crucial issues of the day’. Other contributors included Jonathan Raban, Paul Foot and Fay Weldon. Townsend’s contribution comprised a series of anecdotes from her own life and was subtitled ‘Why Britain Needs its Welfare State’.

The drafts and correspondence relating to Mr Bevan’s Dream can be found in the Sue Townsend Archive in Special Collections. When extracts were published in the Observer in 1989 they received a strong response from readers, about which the paper’s associate editor Robert Low commented, ‘I’ve never known such a response, apart from when the Magazine ran some rather lewd photographs of naked ladies in the Crazy House cabaret, Paris’!

Reading some of the readers’ letters in the archive, it is easy to see why the response was so strong. Townsend’s pieces, about her own encounters with the NHS, Social Services, and other aspects of the welfare state, resonated with people. They wrote both directly to her and to the paper to say how her experiences mirrored their own, often with stories from their own lives.

Sue Townsend’s millions of readers can relate to her books because she, in turn, could relate to their lives. Those speaking at the service who knew her personally returned repeatedly to her integrity, humanity and her political convictions. It was a fitting tribute to a remarkable woman.