Ian Cochrane (7 November 1941 – 9 September 2004) was a British novelist and creative writing teacher. His novels are known for dark humour and tragic endings. Biography Cochrane was born in Moylarg and grew up in rural Antrim in Northern Ireland. He said, "We lived in a little house right out in the country, with seven of us sleeping in one bedroom. But I don't think I realised we were living in poverty." Later the family moved into one of the new council houses built after the Second World War, but Cochrane continued to attend the old two-roomed country school. This school had a female teacher at one end for the younger children and a male "master" at the other end for the older ones. The master in this case was the progressive R.L. Russell (author of The Child and His Pencil, 1935), who encouraged young Cochrane to write and gave him the confidence to escape to better things. Cochrane moved to London in the late 1950s and after abandoning a variety of jobs was eventually able to live as a full-time writer. Stories began to appear in literary magazines and anthologies such as Faber's Introduction 4 (1971) and Penguin Modern Stories (1972). Cochrane's first novel, A Streak of Madness, was published in 1973, and his second, Gone in the Head (1974), was a runner-up for the Guardian Fiction Prize. Much of his early life is echoed in his novels, but when asked if they were autobiographical, he said: "It's not science fiction, it's in the real world that I'm living in. It isn't just autobiographical, but I draw from my own experience." There was a naturalness about the writing, a conversational authenticity, which he felt was a gift, like being able to play an instrument. He said, "When I'm working hard on something, I feel the typewriter can't go fast enough, with all the feelings and the dialogue going through me." Although he taught creative writing for a time and had been working on a book on the subject, he was doubtful whether ultimately it was something that could be learned. He said, "The people who do well are the people who can say: 'Yeah, I knew that.' I'm not saying it's not a benefit, because they might be really good writers and not know that they're good writers." Acquaintances say that his attitude was that if the