| Product: |
Catherine Cookson in general |
| Date: |
23/08/02 (1072 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Numerous best sellers
Disadvantages: None
I have to confess to not being one of the most avid readers of Dame Catherine Cookson’s books but I do appreciate her work and I believe her to be one of the twentieth centuries great ladies of literature.
The young Katie McMullen was born illegitimate and into poverty in 1906, she was brought up by her grandmother Rose and step-grandfather John McMullen at 10, William Black Street, Jarrow, County Durham (now Tyne and Wear) and Kate Fawcett, who Catherine believed to be her sister was in fact her mother.
Unlike many of our leading writers, Catherine started life with many disadvantages, she had only the minimum of education and from the age of thirteen she suffered from a hereditary blood disorder however the stigma of her illegitimate birth, which left emotional scars and her harsh upbringing became the dominant tableau of her amazing output of one hundred and three novels over fifty years.
From an early age Catherine was determined to become a writer, she was an avid reader and wrote her first short story ‘The Wild Irish Girl’ when she was eleven, and sent it to the local daily evening newspaper ‘The Shields Gazette’, the Gazette returned it unpublished after three days (I can’t help thinking they must regret not keeping it in their archives).
In later life Catherine was once quoted as saying “I was a story-teller from the time I could talk, and if I could get an audience, if I could get someone to listen to me. I used to pass the time telling myself wonderful stories about us living in a nice house with lino on the stairs, one of the best ones I’ve ever told was about the wee folk, the little green men talking to me.”
At the age of thirteen Catherine left school and began working as a maid in the houses of the rich and powerful, witnessing the great class barrier inside the wealthy society. In an attempt to find security and respectability Catherine left the North
East at the age of twenty-three to manage a laundry in Hastings and within a few years she had scrapped together enough money to buy a house where she took in gentlemen boarders.
One of Catherine’s boarders was kindly, mild-mannered school teacher Thomas (Tom) Cookson who she married in 1940 at the age of thirty-four. Tom became Catherine’s staunch companion and support during years of physical and mental sickness and the heartache of numerous miscarriages.
On the advice of her doctor the well read and largely self-taught Catherine took up writing again and her first novel ‘Kate Hannigan’ was completed in 1948 when she was forty-two; ‘Kate Hannigan’ is partly autobiographical and in the story Kate, a working class girl becomes pregnant by an upper middle class man, the child (a girl) is born and brought up by Kate’s parents, the child believes them to be her parents and Kate to be her sister.
Catherine wrote her first sixteen books longhand, but after this she used a tape recorder, acting the parts of the characters she was writing about, Tom worked as her private secretary and helped with the grammar and spelling.
Catherine was not afraid to tackle social issues or class tensions, her book ‘Colour Blind’ (1953) is the story of a woman who marries a black man; they have a daughter who suffers at the hands of classmates and a bitter uncle. The background is realistic and offers an understanding picture of the British working class; ‘The Black Candle’ (1989) is set in the nineteenth century and depicts a clash between two families from different social classes.
Many of Catherine’s novels are centred on the poverty in the North East of England and are set in mines, shipyards or farms and the surrounding countryside in various periods from the nineteenth century onwards. She carefully researched the historical background for her writings as well as drawing on her own experiences as material and recollections of her family and friends.
Several of Catherine’s novels are serialized and trace the life of an individual character or family such as the Mallen Family and Tilly Trotter. Catherine’s characters usually cross the class barrier by means of education, Tilly Trotter is taught to read and write by the parson’s daughter.
Catherine’s characters are often outcasts, Tilly is thought to be a witch by the local villagers, the story begins during the reign of the young Queen Victoria and Tilly moves up and down the social scale; she becomes the mistress of a wealthy man, the wife of his son, and later she moves to the United States. The Tilly Trotter series of novels, ‘Tilly Trotter’ (1980) ‘Tilly Trotter Wed’ (1981) and ‘Tilly Trotter Widowed’ (1982) inspired the film ‘Tilly Trotter’ (1999).
The Mallan Family trilogy began with ‘The Mallan Streak’ (1973) continued with ‘The Mallen Girl’ (1974) and ended with ‘The Mallen Lot (1974), the saga was set in the nineteenth century and depicts the affairs of the family against the background of hidden sins of the past.
Catherine’s autobiography ‘Our Kate’ was published in 1969 and other autobiographical works include ‘Catherine Cookson Country’ (1986), ‘Let Me Make Myself Plain’ (1988) and ‘Plainer Still: A New Personal Anthology’ (1995)
Novels by Catherine Cookson have been translated into twenty languages, in 1988 one third of all fiction borrowed from public libraries in the United Kingdom was by Catherine Cookson and in 1997 nine of her works were on the list of the top ten most borrowed books.
It was inevitable that many of her compelling storylines and powerful characters would become major television dramas and film crews have used authentic backdrops like South Shields Town Hall, Marsden Rock, Jarrow Hall and the still to be seen cobbled streets of the riverside at Mill Dam, South Shields along with many local people as extras; my mother and sister are seen as extras in the opening scenes of the televised version of ‘The Cinder Path’ largely filmed at Beamish Open Air Museum and one of my sons (hudso_a at the age of fifteen) was employed as a double of the young Stephen in ‘The Glass Virgin’, the part he was in was filmed at Alnwick Castle and Jarrow Hall, unfortunately in one of the scenes he had to ride a horse and prior to this he had only ever ridden a donkey as a small child, which he fell off, however he took the part of Stephen so well it is difficult to tell that he was a double.
Catherine Cookson also wrote under the name Catherine Marchant (The Slow Awakening and The Iron Façade both written in 1976 are two of her books written under the name Marchant). She was made a Dame, received the Freedom of the Borough of South Tyneside, an honorary degree from the University of Newcastle, 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 among countless other awards and literary honours during her long career, her books are available in both hard back and paper back in all major book shops as well as small outlets and newsagents, you can also buy her work online, click on amazon.com to check out their selection of Catherine Cookson works.
Dame Catherine Cookson nee Catherine Ann McMullen was born on 27th June 1906, she died at her home in Newcastle upon Tyne on 11th June 1998, days before her ninety-second birthday and her novel ‘Kate Hanningan’s Girl’ (1999), which continues the story of her first novel was published posthumously.
Perhaps an even greater romantic drama than any of those found in the pages of her books was contained in her own life and the love and devotion shared between her and Tom, so bereft and distraught was he that he died three-weeks after his beloved Catherine.
Dame Catherine is known to all in her hometown of Jarrow and throughout the North East simply as ‘Wor Kate’, her generosity was legendary and many charities and individuals still benefit from her kindness today.
Summary: The the life and love she shared with her beloved Tom is a greater romanitic drama than any book
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