Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland by Adrian Mole

Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire: thanks to Trip Advisor 

Title: Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland 

Author: Adrian Mole 

Publisher: Never published 

Source Book: The Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend

I have never been able to read Adrian Mole. The first book enjoyed such enormous success that one couldn’t avoid reading or hearing snippets from it, and I found it every bit as amusing as The Diary of a Nobody. Which is to say; not at all. It’s just not the kind of book I enjoy. It’s actually quite hard not enjoying something the whole of the rest of the country has gone crazy go nuts for. I think I was quite lucky nobody gave me a copy of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ for Christmas.

I’m telling you this, because you will have to forgive me for not knowing which Adrian Mole book these fictitious books come from.

Wikipedia informs me that Adrian, who takes himself far too seriously, writes Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland*. The first drafts are written without vowels (I feel the need of an emoji), and awful extracts are included in his diaries. He also writes The Restless Tadpole: An Opus, which a potential agent describes as “effete crap”. It does sound dreadful.

Finally, Adrian gets a contract to write a tie-in book for a comedy cookery programme called Offally Good! Unfortunately he suffers from terrible writer’s block and his mother writes the book for him. And without his knowledge adds a dedication reading “To my beloved mother, Pauline Mole, who has nurtured me and inspired me throughout my life. Without this magnificent woman’s wisdom and erudition I could not have written this book.” I feel sure he is extremely annoyed when he finds out. I certainly would be.

* Adrian comes from Leicestershire. I have been there to visit cousins, but I don’t remember anything of the landscape. There was snow on the ground, and my mother was horrified to see that the cat had made a mess behind the sofa. The house was so cold it didn’t smell, but nobody made any attempt to clean it up. I think I was 8 or 9.

Leicestershire countryside: thanks to Savills