Life of catherine cookson

Her first novel, Kate Hannigan, was published in By Catherine had written 58 books, which had been translated into 14 languages and had sold more than 50 million copies worldwide. Apart from worrying about whether she would be well enough on the day, Tom also wondered how he was going to keep the secret from her. However, when Catherine sprained her ankle a couple of weeks before the programme, Tom was able to keep her upstairs and out of the way of the preparations.

Catherine was the illegitimate child of Kate Fawcett, an alcoholic. She was raised by her grandparents and, as a child, she thought Kate, her mother, was her sister. Her father was later revealed by a biographer to be Alexander Davies, a bigamist and gambler from Lanarkshire. After leaving school at the age of 13, Catherine Cookson spent some time as a domestic servant before taking a laundry job at Harton Workhouse in South Shields.

Eventually moving south to run the Hastings Workhouse laundry, Catherine saved enough money to purchase a large Victorian house after which she took in lodges as a means of supplementing her income. At the age of 34 JuneCatherine married Tom Cookson. He was a teacher at Hastings Grammar School. She experienced four miscarriages before learning that she suffered from telangiectasia, a rare vascular disease that could result in anemia.

It took Catherine a decade to recover from the mental breakdown she suffered following her miscarriages. Kate Hannigan, her first novel, was published in A lot of the work Catherine Cookson produced manifested the uncomfortable research she had to undertake to write her stories, this including going down a mine to study the setting of one of her stories.

Before her death, Catherine Cookson had written nearly a hundred books, which have been translated in more than a dozen languages. Katie Mulholland became a stage musical incomposed by Eric Boswell Ken Hill wrote and directed. Despite all the films and stage plays adapted from her work, though, it was on Television that she achieved the greatest success.

Various series of dramas adapted from her work not only attracted huge ratings, but they lasted for over a decade on ITV. Catherine Cookson lived her final years in Jesmond. Her first novel, Kate Hannigan, was published in Though it was labelled a life of catherine cookson, she expressed discontent with the stereotype. Her books were, she said, historical novels about people and conditions she knew.

Cookson had little connection 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. Cookson wrote almost books, which sold more than million copies, her novels being translated into at least 20 languages.

She also wrote books under the pseudonyms Catherine Marchant and a name derived from her childhood name, Katie McMullen. She remained the most borrowed author from public libraries in the UK for 17 years, up until four years after her death, losing the top spot to Jacqueline Wilson only in It was followed by Rooneydirected by George Pollock, based on her book Rooney.

Both starred John Gregson. For commercial reasons, the action of both films was transferred from South Shields to Ireland. References [ edit ].

Life of catherine cookson

The Times. ISBN Retrieved 11 June Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed. Oxford University Press. Subscription or UK public library membership required. BBC News. Archived from the original on 16 January Retrieved 15 January Shields Gazette. Archived from the original on 29 June The New York Times. National Library of Australia.

Catherine Cookson: A Biography. Public Lending Right. Retrieved 15 January — via www. Newcastle Journal. Retrieved 30 October — via British Newspaper Archive. Archived from the original PDF on 17 June Retrieved 5 April Archived from the original on 18 August Chronicle Live. Penguin Books Australia. Retrieved 22 November The Washington Post.