Adrian Mole - Continuity Errors

Continuity Errors

• Adrian's birth year is usually given as 1967 (as in Aged 13¾, Growing Pains, Wilderness Years, Cappuccino Years) but sometimes as 1968 (True Confessions, Weapons of Mass Destruction). In Prostrate Years, Adrian's surprise 40th birthday party is celebrated on April 2, 2008.
• According to the final chapter of From Minor to Major, Sharon Bott was three months pregnant in July 1989, meaning that Glenn Bott-Mole was born around January 1990. On Christmas Eve 1990 Adrian meets Glenn for the first time, describing him as "a strange-looking moon-headed toddler." But in Cappuccino Years, set in 1997, Glenn is twelve years old, when consistency would require him to be only seven. Also, Glenn's thirteenth birthday falls in April 1998, not January. This makes Adrian seventeen at the time of Glenn's conception in July 1984, and Sharon, who was in Adrian's year at school, so was born between 1 September 1966 and 31 August 1967, was either seventeen or close to her 17th birthday. The final word comes from Weapons of Mass Destruction, where Glenn is seventeen and joins the Army in 2002. This agrees with his age in the previous book. So Glenn's birthdate changes from January 1990 to April 1985.
• In Cappuccino Years William is cited as turning 3 years old in 1997, yet in The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole 1999-2001 at the start of the book Adrian says he is 7 years old. Which doesn't fall in with the info given in the previous book.
• In Growing Pains, Rosie is born on 11 November 1982. However, by the start of the Cappuccino Years (May 1997), it is implied that she is fifteen years old and about to take her GCSEs and leave school, when she should be fourteen years old and have two years to go before her GCSEs. Later in Cappuccino Years, in October 1997, Adrian mentions that Rosie is still at school (as she should be, going by her birthdate in the Growing Pains).
• In Growing Pains the tyrannical headmaster of Adrian's school, "Pop-Eye" Scruton, retires on the grounds of ill health. But in True Confessions, he is still Adrian's headmaster.
• Bert Baxter celebrates his 90th birthday on 29 May 1983, meaning that he was born on 29 May 1893. In The Cappucino Years, in 1997, it is said that he died a day before his 106th birthday; however, in 1997 he would celebrate his 104th birthday. In the same chapter, 9 May is referred as his birthday. However, Bert does state in Growing Pains that he is uncertain whether it is in fact his 90th birthday or not.
• In Prostrate Years Adrian states “I only got a C grade in GCSE biology”. GCSE's are typically take the summer after a student's 16th birthday, but GCSE's did not replace O Levels and CSE's until June 1988, when Adrian would have been too old to take them.
• At the end of Weapons of Mass Destruction Adrian's father must use a wheelchair after contracting a virus while in hospital for a back operation, but at the start of Prostrate Years the reason for his disability is given as a stroke brought on by years of poor dietary habits and inactivity.
• Several characters' names change:
  • In Growing Pains, Barry Kent's mother's name is Ida, but in Cappuccino Years she is called Edna.
  • Sharon Bott was called Sharon Botts in the early books.
  • Nigel's surname is given as Partridge in True Confessions but in the later books it is Hetherington.
  • Adrian's paternal grandfather's name alternates between Albert and Arnold.
  • Pauline Mole's middle name is given as Monica; later, in The Prostrate Years, it's given as Hilda.