Bert Baxter

From Adrian Mole wiki

Bert Baxter is an old-age pensioner befriended by Adrian Mole. He first appears in the book The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, and is a major figure throughout Adrian’s teenage years. As Adrian matures he becomes resentful of Bert, rarely seeing him after moving away from Leicester. His last appearance is in Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years, when Adrian is 24. Bert Baxter’s death is recorded in Adrian Mole The Cappuccino Years.

Bert is a filthy, vulgar, bad-tempered man in poor health, who smokes and drinks heavily and is sometimes unkind to or manipulative of Adrian. He is a staunch republican and Communist who lives alone with his large Alsatian dog, Sabre, initially in a squalid house and at various times in the Alderman Cooper Sunshine retirement home. It is here he meets Queenie, whom he soon marries, and the pair move into a bungalow provided by Social Services. Queenie dies within a year and Bert lives the remainder of his life alone.

Bert Baxter was fundamentally a grumpy old man. He would rant about “the needs of the proletariat to rise up” and how, were he a younger man he would infiltrate The Sun newspaper and smash the presses. In spite of these extreme left-wing views, he was quite old-fashioned and set in his ways, dismissing the BBC as “a load of drug addicts”, maintaining a dislike of Americans for their late entry into the Second World War, and saying that whenever he heard the word ‘culture’ he reached for his bottle opener.

Bert was a follower of Friedrich Engels, read the Morning Star and smoked up to sixty Woodbines a day. He kept late hours and insisted on at least three bottles of brown ale before he went to bed. His very poor diet consisted mainly of his favourite beetroot sandwiches, which he would eat at all times of the day, leaving his bedclothes stained, along with fried eggs and other convenience foods. He was also a lover of curry and Dream toppings.

He lived in a very dirty house that was surrounded by a huge overgrown privet hedge. His red and blue carpets were so thick with grime they appeared grey, and underneath them were a layer of dirt, old newspapers, hairpins, marbles and decomposed mice. Bert’s furniture was full of woodworm and his curtains fell apart when Pandora tried to take them down for cleaning. His kitchen drain was full of bones and tea leaves. Bert was also parsimonious, owing the city council over £290 in rent arrears as well as a large newspaper bill. He carried old money and gave Adrian a book token that had expired in 1958.

Apparently incapable of properly taking care of himself, Bert seldom washed and his uncouth habits and lack of hygiene appalled Adrian. The false teeth Bert wore he had inherited from his father in 1946. When Sabre was found to be chewing them in his basket, Bert simply rinsed them in water and put them back in his mouth. Bert was irritable and foul-mouthed and tended to find fault with everything Adrian and his friends and family did to try and help him. His temper worsened as he became more infirm and he would become maudlin on the subject of death, particularly after the loss of his second wife, Queenie. He considered his dog, Sabre to be his only true friend.

[edit] Early Life

Bert was born on (possibly) May 29th, 1891. As a boy he worked in a large house where he was “made a Communist”, although the specific details of how or why were not revealed.

Bert served in the First World War, during which time he apparently had a breakdown from the stress of seeing thousands of dead men and being in constant fear for his life. He would later tell many stories about this period which were either misremembered or obvious lies. He claimed for instance that his life was saved by the Bible he always carried in his breast pocket, but the Bible in question was actually printed decades later, in 1956. He clearly travelled extensively, later saying he “shagged his way around Europe”. He owned a number of erotic French postcards, signed “avec tout mon amour, Cheri”, and he at some point learned to speak Hindi fluently.

Bert worked as an hostler and married an unattractive woman who looked somewhat like a horse, although Bert said he didn’t notice this until he left his job and went to work on the railways. They remained married for “thirty-five miserable years” and had four children, two of whom would eventually move to Australia. It is not known when Bert’s wife died, but none of his children visited him or stayed in contact afterwards.

[edit] Bert and Adrian

In January 1980, the 13-year old Adrian had joined the Good Samaritans group at his school, and was hoping to be assigned a “nice, old-age pensioner” who would tell good war stories. He was shocked and dismayed by Bert Baxter and intimidated by Sabre, but didn’t expect the 89-year old Bert to live for very long. He could not have known they would share an occasionally hostile, 15 year relationship.

Bert mainly leaned on Adrian as a domestic drudge, and Adrian’s duties included cutting Bert’s corns, taking his many empty bottles back to the off-license, ironing his underpants, trimming the overgrown hedge, walking, feeding and tending to Sabre, cooking, and washing the dishes, which Bert saved especially for Adrian as he “made a good job of it”. Later, as Bert’s health deteriorated, Adrian would assist Bert in washing and dressing and would even help him onto the commode.

Adrian often disliked Bert but felt sympathy for him and tried to help as much as he could, trying to arrange professional nursing care and to generally improve Bert’s quality of life. Bert in turn did seem to like and appreciate Adrian, although he didn’t often show signs of this. He would share amusing stories with Adrian, and always sent a gift/card on Adrian’s birthday, as well as giving him his collection of Eagle magazines. When Adrian left Bert’s hedge clippers outside in the rain after cutting Bert’s privet hedge, Bert called Mr. Scruton at Adrian’s school to complain and demand compensation, but later apologised and admitted he just wanted hear a human voice. Above all, Bert was a lonely man who liked the company of young people, and was hurt when Adrian would sometimes fail to visit. He became very fond of Pandora and seemed to inspire the more selfless side of her character. Bert was taken with Pandora’s pony, Blossom and traded grooming tips, and was saddened when she was sold to a posh family.

Adrian’s grandmother knew Bert, who was also a member of the Evergreens club before being kicked out for his disruptive, drunken behaviour on a trip to Skegness. Grandma loathed Bert for his Communism, bad manners, alcohol abuse and the fact that Bert had lived so long, as she felt he should have died instead of her husband, Albert. By contrast both Adrian’s and Pandora’s parents liked Bert and frequently helped to look after him. Bert was a guest at the Mole’s and the Braithwaite’s houses on several occasions, spending at least two Christmases with the Moles. In June of that year, Bert became ill, delirious and needing oxygen. He spent some weeks in hospital before discharging himself and going to stay in the spare room at the Mole household. He was left wheelchair-bound after this point and needed 24-hour nursing care. Bert disliked the district nurse, whom he suspected of trying to poison him. He then went to live with the Singh family for a time before being sent home when Mr. Singh had to return to India. A month later he was forcibly relocated to the Alderman Cooper Sunshine retirement home. He was not allowed to keep Sabre, who was sent to the RSPCA kennel, and shared a room with a man named Thomas Bell, who died within days, leaving Bert the oldest- and only male- “inmate”.

[edit] Queenie

Bert met Queenie, a fellow resident at the Alderman Cooper home, in October of 1980. They went out together several times and were unofficially engaged by Christmas of that year, causing something of a scandal at the home.

Bert cashed in his life insurance to pay for a wedding suit and the pair were married on January 16th, at a registry office in Leicester. They enjoyed a short “honeymoon” in the retirement home and then moved into a bungalow provided by Social Services, who also installed a telephone. (The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole)

In July of that year, Queenie had a stroke and was taken into hospital. Bert refused to return to the retirement home during Queenie’s convalescence, fearing their bungalow would be repossessed. Bert was assigned a social worker, Katie Bell (presumably no relation to Thomas), who said Bert was suffering from slight senile dementia. Bert was again looked after by the Mole family, and later the Braithwaites when the Moles were on holiday in Skegness. Tania Braithwaite found Bert very difficult and the Singh’s took over his care, until Mrs. Singh too lost patience with him and sent him on holiday with a charity group for elderly Hindus.

Queenie did make a partial recovery and came home several weeks later, but she suffered a second stroke and died in her sleep on Dec 7th. Bert was distraught at Queenie’s death and insisted that she “go out properly”, applying unsuccessfully for a loan to pay for her funeral. It was only thanks to fundraising efforts by Adrian that a respectable funeral was arranged, and Queenie was cremated on Dec 13th. Bert wore his wedding suit to the service and afterwards kept his and Queenie’s wedding photo under his pillow.

An Age Concern volunteer named Wesley visited Bert at home, and was soon joined by a team of voluntary helpers, none of whom wanted to deal with Sabre. Even they apparently gave up on Bert, and all of them had “deserted” him by late-April. Adrian had predicted this would happen in his farewell letter to Bert, when Adrian briefly ran away from home in March. (The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole)

[edit] Final Years

Adrian kept a diary only sporadically from 1983 to 1988, and made few references to Bert Baxter, of whom he was becoming increasingly resentful.

Bert was apparently absent from the Mole household on Christmas 1984. By October of 1985, Adrian and Pandora were attending college and still regularly calling in on Bert, who by this time was the oldest man on the electoral roll and “refuse(d) to die until he (saw) the fall of Capitalism”. (True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole)

The next mention of Bert was not until August 1989, by which time Bert was being visited by a peripatetic chiropodist. He confessed he “couldn’t wait to join his gel” (Queenie). In late October, the aging Sabre was knocked down and killed by a milk float (or Co-op van, to go by Adrian’s poem). The ‘funeral’ for the Alsatian was held on the 28th, with Bert once again wearing his wedding suit. Adrian agreed to personally dig a grave for Sabre in Bert’s back garden but, with only a rusty trowel available, he could only dig an untidy hole in the compacted soil. Bert complained that it looked “like a bleedin’ artillery shell’s exploded”. Adrian was very bitter and hurt, feeling that Bert was a burden and that looking after him was the reason he had failed his A Levels.

On Christmas Eve 1990, Bert attended the wedding of Pauline Mole to Martin Muffett. (Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians)

At the Wedding/New Years Eve party at the Moles’ house, Adrian reflected on Bert’s age, 100 years, and hoped to be rid of him soon.

An obviously lonely Bert telephoned Adrian at his workplace at the DEO in Oxford, wanting to see Adrian and Pandora. Though Adrian was in fact living with Pandora, along with her bi-sexual husband and her aged lover at the time, his relationship with her was disintegrating. Pandora went to Leicester without Adrian, who tried to lie to Bert about not visiting, saying he was ill. Pandora told Bert the truth that Adrian had overslept, and stayed for four days, buying Bert a kitten for company. Adrian received no birthday card from Bert that year. In September the suddenly homeless Adrian returned to Leicester, and was forced to beg accommodation from Bert, spending a night on a Put-U-Up in his living room, for which Bert charged £5 plus £2.50 for bacon and eggs. Bert’s house now “stank of cats”. Adrian took Bert to the Age Concern bonfire party in November, but Bert’s behaviour forced them to leave early, further adding to Adrian’s resentment towards him.

When Bert wrote to Adrian, now living in London, in January 1992, Adrian ignored his letter, and when Adrian and Bianca visited Leicester that February, Adrian didn’t visit him, nor did he write to Bert during his holiday in Greece, when he wrote to his parents, Pandora, Jo-Jo, Rosie, John Tydeman and Barry Kent. Adrian’s grandma died in April, and Bert sang loudly at her funeral. (Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years)

At some point, Bert once again became a resident of the Alderman Cooper home, ultimately suing them for failing to provide his dietary requirements. Now refusing to eat anything except beetroot sandwiches, Spotted Dick and custard, Bert went on hunger strike and achieved national attention from the press, who nicknamed him “Beetroot Bertie”. The home staff eventually capitulated, but said they were “greatly inconvenienced”.

Bert’s 105th birthday was another publicity event, attended by Adrian and Pandora, as well as the Mayor and Mayoress of Leicester and a Central TV news crew. A typically coarse Bert was interviewed by a woman called Lisa Barrowfield, who tried to deflect Bert’s crude references to her breasts, and asked him the question “to what do you attribute your long life?” fourteen times. Each time, Bert’s response was unfit for broadcast, as he claimed his diet of beetroot sandwiches, his 60 Woodbines-a-day habit, his never jogging or going to bed sober, and his active sex life had all kept him healthy. The Mayor and his wife disassociated themselves from the event- and subsequently booked a holiday in Tenerife to coincide with Bert’s birthday the following year- and Bert’s answer was re-edited for television, so that he appeared to attribute his longevity to never smoking, sleeping well and “jogging” his way around Europe. Bert was outraged by the final broadcast version of his interview.

[edit] Death

Bert died in 1996, one day short of his 106th birthday, in an accident involving his dressing gown cord and the mechanism of the stair lift at the retirement home. The headline of his obituary read “STAIR-LIFT TRAGEDY: OLDEST JOGGER DIES”. The senior nurse at the Alderman Cooper home said that Bert was “quite a character, who didn’t suffer fools gladly”.

Adrian was “surprised how much (he) cared” when Bert died, but admitted his main emotion was relief at no longer being obligated to look after him. He did not mellow in his opinion of Bert, remembering him as “Leicester’s oldest and most objectionable man”, and maintaining a dislike and mistrust of all pensioners. Indeed, he feared his brief association with Archie Tait, another quarrelsome old man, would develop into a similar relationship, and that old people were his “albatross”. (Adrian Mole The Cappuccino Years)

Adrian would take over the care of yet another pensioner, the nonagenarian Mrs Wormington, who lived with him and his sons for the last weeks of her life in 2000, but the canonicity of this story is debatable. (The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001)

[edit] In other media

In the TV series The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾, Bert Baxter was played by Bill Fraser.