2007 On this day Britain gave up cigarettes – at least in public. The event dominated the news but made little impact on literature, with one exception. In his diary (now, alas, in its fateful ‘prostrate [sic] years’) Adrian Mole, 39¼, recorded:
A momentous day! Smoking in a public place or place of work is forbidden in England. Though if you are a lunatic, a prisoner, an MP, or a member of the Royal Family you are exempt.
Although he himself has never indulged, Adrian records that ‘smoking has blighted my life’:
There is a picture of me in my mother’s arms, the day I was released from the maternity hospital. She is standing in the hospital car park with me cradled in one arm, the other arm is hanging at her side and in her hand is a lit cigarette. I have been ingesting smoke since I was five days old.
Lung cancer is the malignancy that causes most deaths among British males, and Mole’s creator, Sue Townsend, has made public that after seven volumes, and a 30-year chronicle of his sadly inadequate life, she wants to do away with her diarist. It seems, however, that it is the second most common mortal malignancy, prostate cancer, that is destined to carry Adrian Mole off. We take our leave of him in the toils of a chemotherapy which looks, alas, as unsuccessful as everything else in his life.