June President's Address

When I had the time to sit and read, I invariably chose a book by Catherine COOKSON - She was born in June 1906 and died in June 1998. She is in the top 20 of the most widely read British novelists and a personal favourite of mine. My long past family hail from the part of the U.K where her novels are set and my male ancestors worked, over a 200-year period ‘down the mines’, so I have an affinity with the life and times of the people she so vividly describes in her novels. Catherine was born illegitimate, the daughter of a domestic servant brought up in Tyneside considered at that time one of the poorest communities of the western world. She left school aged 14, worked in a workhouse and only began her career as an author in 1950 in her 40s, stating that she only began writing as a form of therapy to tackle her depression. The WI support creative writing. It is said that we all have ‘a book inside us all’. Catherine’s life experiences inspired her novels. Could we do the same? She wrote 100 books, translated into 20 languages, and sold more than 123 million copies worldwide. She suffered from a rare vascular blood condition. She pledged a considerable sum of money to Newcastle University some of which was used to provide a laser to treat bleeding disorders and in recognition a building at the faculty has been named after her. An OBE and the title Dame were bestowed. I feel she is an inspirational woman of the 20th century. This Newsletter is produced for members of Marina WI only.