If an ordinary person is moved to a slum area, deprived of even modest income, then the person will, of course, be upset. But not as much as the royal family, who once found themselves in a miserable house with cockroaches in the cracks, mold on the walls and soot on the ceiling. It was there that the imagination of Sue Townsend took the English rulers. And so the Queen of England stands in line for bones, Prince Charles languishes in jail, Princess Anne accepts the advances of a chauffeur, Princess Diana enthusiastically imitates slum fashionistas, and the Queen Mother strikes up a tender friendship with a beggarly old woman. Problems are falling on the royal family from all sides: how deal with shoe laces; how to cook soup; what to do with nasty insects; what to feed a starved dog and how to turn on the gas to light a wretched fireplace...Probably no writer other than Sue Townsend could destroy the British monarchy with such wit and describe the misadventures of the royal family so mockingly and sympathetically.