Last updated at 11:44, Friday, 03 April 2009

OUTWARDLY, she cut a quiet, shy and slightly dowdy figure as she made her way round the district.

There was nothing about her to indicate this elderly Tynedale lady was the world’s favourite author, and a millionaire many times over.

Success came late in life to Catherine Cookson – but she lost no time in sharing her success with others.

When the Hexham Courant launched an appeal in 1982 to build a recreation centre for wheelchair users near Hexham Hospital, she was only too happy to become the appeal’s patron.

She handed over a personal cheque for £5,000 and within a couple of years the Tynedale Open Recreation Centre for the handicapped –the TORCH Centre – was a reality.

Around the same time, five girls from Hexham’s Queen Elizabeth High School were battling for selection for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

The author heard they needed a new boat to pursue their dreams – and within a matter of weeks the vessel Katie was launched on Hexham’s Tyne Green.

There are numerous other examples of the generosity of the woman who for many years was Britain’s most widely read novelist, who wrote many of her books while living at homes in Corbridge and Langley.

Many of her innumerable historical novels are also set in the district, and villages like Blanchland, Simonburn and Langley became known internationally when television production companies used them for the filming of blockbusting costume dramas.

Stately homes like Nunwick Hall at Simonburn and Chesters at Chollerford were also widely used – although she did not like many of the television adaptations.

She had few airs and graces, and whilst living at Town Barns in Corbridge was keen to donate a stretch of land near her home as a village amenity.

Somewhat churlishly, the parish council rejected the offer, on the grounds it would have to maintain the land.

Deeply hurt, Catherine lost no time in moving out of the village, and setting up home with husband Tom in a bungalow overlooking Langley Dam, where she spent many of her happiest days.

She had come a long way since being born in 1906 on the wrong side of the blanket in a poor area of Tyne Dock in what was then County Durham.

The young Catherine Anne McMullen grew up in grinding poverty, believing her mother to be her sister, and stood by helplessly as she became a hopeless alcoholic.

She moved to East Jarrow, which would become the setting for one of her best known novels.

She left school at 13 and worked as a domestic servant, before working in the workhouse laundry in South Shields.

Then the chance came to move away from the poverty of the North-East to run the laundry services at the workhouse in the more genteel surroundings of Hastings in Surrey.

It was the last she was to see of the region that made her famous for 40 years.

For, she scrimped and saved every penny of her meagre income from the workhouse to buy a large house, where she took in gentleman lodgers.

She also caught the eye of a dapper schoolmaster from Hastings Grammar School, Tom Cookson.

They were married in 1940 – and remained lifelong companions for the best part of 60 years.

However, their early life together was blighted by tragedy, as she suffered a series of miscarriages when advanced in pregnancy.

She also discovered she was suffering from a rare blood disorder which manifested itself in copious haemorrhaging from the nose, fingers and stomach, also causing severe anaemia.

It all proved too much for the young Catherine, who suffered a complete nervous breakdown.

She was ill for more than a decade and turned to writing as a form of therapy.

It proved to be the start of a publishing phenomenon.

Her first, semi-autobiographical novel, Kate Hannigan, was published in 1950, and her prolific output took off from there.

More than 100 novels flowed from her pen, writing under her own name, her maiden name and as Catherine Marchant.

She averaged two novels per year, with her tales of wronged scullery maids and upstairs-downstairs rom-ances being lapped up in their many millions.

She was haunted by many demons from her early life, and could be petty and spiteful – but she was unbelievably successful.

She outsold other famous authors such as Barbara Cartland many times over, and her readership never tired of the clever variations on a familiar theme.

Despite her success, she was never seen on the London literary scene, or the television chat shows.

Success made her an extremely wealthy woman, but instead of hoarding her cash she gave lots of it away.

She was the most-borrowed author from public libraries in the country for many years, but she never claimed the £5,000 a year she was entitled to, asking that it be passed on to less fortunate writers.

She also gave more than £1 million to research into a cure for the illness that had afflicted her.

She set up the Catherine Cookson Foundation at Newcastle University, which resulted in the creation of a lectureship in haematology.

Another £40,000 went to provide a laser to help treat bleeding disorders, with a further £50,000 funding a new post in ear, nose and throat studies, particularly to detect deafness in children.

She had already given £20,000 towards the university's Hatton Gallery and £32,000 to its library.

When she returned to the North-East as a successful author in the early 1980s, she received the Freedom of the Borough of South Tyneside.

The area is now known as Catherine Cookson Country and is a popular tourist attraction for fans from all over the world.

She had a rose named after her, and other honours included 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 kudos as its writer of the year, as well as being voted Personality of The North-East.

Royal recognition came in 1985 when she was made an OBE, but the crowning glory came in 1993 when she was made a Dame of the British Empire.

As she grew older and more frail, her health began to deteriorate, with the bleedings spells becoming more and more frequent.

She gradually lost her eyesight, but continued dictating novels from her sickbed.

Reluctantly, she was forced to leave her beloved Langley to move to Jesmond to be nearer the hospitals where she spent much of her time.

She died at Jesmond a few days short of her 92nd birthday – and heartbroken Tom followed her to the grave just 17 days later.

They left a £20 million fortune, all of which was donated to charity.

First published at 09:48, Friday, 03 April 2009
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk