BOOK REVIEW / What if the Windsors were losers?: The Queen and I - Sue Townsend: Methuen, pounds 9.99

ONCE upon a time the sky fell on the Royal Family when a ghastly little pillock called Jack Barker of the Republican Party became prime minister and abolished the monarchy. Elizabeth Windsor and the firm were sent to live on a rundown housing estate in the Midlands with DSS handouts as their only income.

The shock sent the Duke of Edinburgh into what looked like rapid terminal decline. Princess Margaret also found the going tough and kept her curtains drawn. The Prince of Wales grew a pigtail, got the hots for a local slag and ended up in a shell suit. Diana fancied a black chap with a fast car, new suits and expensive aftershave. The two children, William and Henry, took no time in becoming illiterate yobs. Princess Anne got off with the local handyman. The Queen Mother shared her last days over tea with the West Indian lady from next door. The Royal corgi became leader of a pack of neighbourhood mongrels.

There was no mention of Fergie; her husband was at sea. Prince Edward was in New Zealand performing in a musical. The Queen single-handedly got on with staying alive and being a rock for those marooned in Hellebore Close, aka Hell Close, Flowers Estate, Middleton MI2 9WL. She was very nice and sensible and would survive each adversity.

I am sick to death of the Royal Family, even with the jokes, so you can put me down as a prejudiced reviewer. I had only to read the publisher's blurb that Sue Townsend had written 'a wickedly funny and subversive novel for the Nineties' to put me in the wrong frame of mind. What, I wondered, was so novel about turning the Royal Family upside down with another fable of riches to rags? Same jokes, different setting - you know the patter.

With that outburst behind me, I have to admit I found this book entertaining - though anyone who describes it as subversive is wide of the mark. It is a gentle tale of working-class survival with a not very satisfying ending. As social comment it works well: if Townsend's design was to show the middle classes how awful life is at the bottom of the heap, she has succeeded.