article_snippet.sent: Probate records released last week reveal that Ms Townsend left the bulk of her estate Ms Townsend in trust, with Ms Townsend second husband Colin Broadway and Ms Townsend four children named as beneficiaries.
article_snippet.sent: Ms Townsend also left £10,000 to Freedom From Torture, legacies of £10,000 each to Ms Townsend two sisters, and £1,000 each to 14 cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts and an uncle.
article_snippet.sent: Born in Leicester in 1946, Ms Townsend left school at the age of 15, married at 18, and by 23 was a single parent with three children, a biography from Ms Townsend publisher, Penguin, said.
article_snippet.sent: After writing in secret for 20 years while working as a factory worker, shop assistant and youth worker, Ms Townsend eventually joined a writers' group at the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester when Ms Townsend was in Ms Townsend 30s.
article_snippet.sent: At 35 Ms Townsend won the Thames Playwright Award for Ms Townsend play, Womberang, and a year later published the first in Ms Townsend series about Adrian Mole, which Ms Townsend had begun writing in 1975 while living on a Leicester housing estate.