Sue Townsend was born in Leicester in 1946. She was brought up in the suburbs, where she spent most of her free time playing in local fields and woods.

Sue’s writing breakthrough was a short play called Womberang (1979) and she has continued to write acclaimed plays throughout her career as a novelist.

‘I think that authors who complain about the success of their most well-known characters are fools; although they mostly do this in private.’