Radio 4 Extra

Adrian receives one Valentine's card in the post, and a letter from the BBC. His parents announce that they are splitting up. Sue Townsend's hilarious and heart-breaking chronicle of a teenager growing up in the Midlands in the 1980s. It's 1981 and Margaret Thatcher is in power; Britain is at war in the Falklands and teenagers are growing up in a world without mobile phones or computer games. While his parents are downstairs, drinking, smoking and arguing about their failing marriage, Adrian is upstairs in his bedroom listening to ABBA, reading great works of literature, writing poems, and penning letters to the BBC. Abridged by Sara Davies. Read by Harry McEntire. Producer: Alexa Moore A Pier production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in September 2017.