Catherine Cookson

Catherine Ann McMullen was born on 27 June 1906 in Tyne Dock, England, UK. She grew up as daugther of Rose and John McMullen, but was the illegitimate daughter of Kate Fawcett, whom she believed to be her older sister, and Alexander Davies, a bigamist. She left school at 13 and, and she began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and Tom Cookson, a local grammar-school master, whom she married on June 1940. She …