Catherine CooksonMy Land of the North
. My Land of the North - published as CATHERINE COOKSON COUNTRY by Heinemann in 1986 - is her own account of her harsh upbringing in the industrial North East, and the effect that its poverty, exploitation and bigotry had on her life and her writing. Grim though her early life undoubtedly was, it aroused such strong feelings and deep emotions in her that she fed off them for her ideas and characters for the rest of her life.
Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, who Catherine believed was her older sister. Catherine began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married Tom Cookson, a local grammar-school master. Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer - her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 - her readership quickly spread throughout the world, and her many best-selling novels established her as one of the most popular contemporary woman novelist. She received an OBE in 1985, was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1993, and was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1997. For many years she lived near Newcastle upon Tyne..
