Catherine Cookson

Dame Catherine Ann Cookson DBE (June 27 1906 - June 11 1998) was an English novelist. Cookson became Britain's most widely read novelist, while remaining a relatively low-profile figure in the world of celebrity novelists. Her writing was inspired by her deprived youth in the North East of England, the setting for her novels.

Related Topics:
Dame - DBE - June 27 - 1906 - June 11 - 1998

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Born Kate McMullen in the Leam Lane area of Tyne Dock, County Durham, she later moved to East Jarrow, which would become the setting for one of her best known novels. The illegitimate child of an alcoholic mother went on to sell some more than 100 million books, her works being translated into 20 languages. She also used the pseudonyms Catherine Marchant and her maiden name, Katie McMullen.

Related Topics:
Tyne Dock - County Durham - Jarrow - Alcoholic - Pseudonym

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She left school at 13 and, after domestic service, took a laundry job in the workhouse in South Shields. In 1929 she moved south to run the laundry at Hastings workhouse, saving every penny to buy herself a large Victorian house, taking in gentleman lodgers to supplement her income.

Related Topics:
Laundry - Workhouse - South Shields - 1929 - Hastings

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In 1943, she married Tom Cookson, a teacher at Hastings Grammar School, and had three miscarriages late in pregnancy. She was suffering from a rare vascular disease, telangiectasia, which causes bleeding from the nose, fingers and stomach and turns to anaemia. A mental breakdown followed the miscarriages, from which she took a decade to recover.

Related Topics:
1943 - Hastings Grammar School - Miscarriage - Vascular - Telangiectasia - Anaemia - Mental breakdown

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Her first novel, Kate Hannigan, was published in 1950. She did not like her books being called "romances". They were, she said, historical novels about people and conditions she knew.

Related Topics:
Kate Hannigan - 1950 - Romance - Historical novel

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Cookson had little to do with the London literary circus. She was always more interested in practising the art of writing. Her research could be uncomfortable - going down a mine, for instance, because her heroine came from a mining area. Having in her youth wanted to write about "above stairs:" in grand houses, she later and successfully concentrated on people ground down by circumstances, taking care to know them well.

Related Topics:
London - Mine

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She became a multi-millionaire from her books, many of which transferred to stage, film, radio, and, on television, achieved vast ratings. Yet she remained thrifty -- while indulging in considerable, discreet, public generosity. She saved halfpennies from the age of eight, struggling for security in a life spent collecting jugs and beer from the pub. When public lending rights were introduced for authors, she became immediately eligible for the maximum £5,000 a year but gave it away for the benefit of less fortunate writers. She also gave more than £1 million to research into a cure for the illness that had afflicted her.

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In later life Catherine and Tom returned to the North East and settled first in Corbridge, a market town near Newcastle, and later in Langley, Northumberland, a small village nearby. As her health declined, they moved for a final time to Newcastle itself to be nearer medical facilities.

Related Topics:
Corbridge - Market town - Langley, Northumberland

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In 1985 she created the Catherine Cookson Foundation at Newcastle University, and promised it more than £800,000; in gratitude, the university set up a lectureship in haematology. Some £40,000 was given to provide a laser to help treat bleeding disorders. And £50,000 went on a new post in ear, nose and throat studies, with particular application to detection of deafness in children. She had already given £20,000 towards the university's Hatton Gallery and £32,000 to its library. The Foundation continues to make donations to good causes in the UK.

Related Topics:
Catherine Cookson Foundation - Newcastle University - Haematology - Laser - Deafness

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She received the Freedom of the Borough of South Tyneside, today known as 'Catherine Cookson Country' and an honorary degree from the University of Newcastle, and the Royal Society of Literature's award for the Best Regional Novel of the Year. The Variety Club of Great Britain named her Writer of the Year, and she was voted Personality of The North-East.

Related Topics:
South Tyneside - University of Newcastle - Royal Society of Literature - Variety Club of Great Britain

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Catherine Cookson was created OBE in 1985 and made a dame in 1993. She died, aged 91, at her home in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, although her novels, many written from her sickbed, continued to be published posthumously. Her husband, Tom, died just three weeks later.

Related Topics:
OBE - 1985 - Dame - 1993 - Newcastle-upon-Tyne

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In her memoirs, Dame Catherine suggested that her actual date of borth was June 20 1906, althought there is no known documentary evidence of this.

Related Topics:
June 20 - 1906

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