title: Our Kate: An Autobiographical Memoir
author:  Catherine Cookson 
description: Catherine Cookson's novels are about hardship, the intractability of life and of individuals, the struggle first to survive and next to make sense of one's survival. Humour, toughness, resolution and generosity are Cookson virtues, in a world which she often depicts as cold and violent. Her novels are weighted and driven by her own early experiences of illegitimacy and poverty. This is what gives them power. In the specialised world of women's popular fiction, Cookson has created her own territory' - Helen Dunmore, The Times
zlib_text: _Table of Contents_
  
  The Catherine Cookson Story
  
  A House Divided
  
  PART ONE
  
  One
  
  Two
  
  Three
  
  Four
  
  Five
  
  Six
  
  Seven
  
  Eight
  
  PART TWO
  
  Nine
  
  Ten
  
  Eleven
  
  Twelve
  
  Thirteen
  
  Fourteen
  
  Fifteen
  
  Sixteen
  
  Seventeen
  
  Eighteen
  
  Nineteen
  
  Twenty
  
  Twenty-One
  
  Twenty-Two
  
  PART THREE
  
  Twenty-Three
  
  Twenty-Four
  
  Twenty-Five
  
  Twenty-Six
  
  Twenty-Seven
  
  Twenty-Eight
  
  Twenty-Nine
  
  Thirty
  
  Thirty-One
  
  _The Catherine Cookson Story_
  
  In brief:
  
    
  
  Her books have sold over 130 million copies in 26 languages throughout the
  world and still counting . . .
  
    
  
  Catherine Cookson was born Katherine Ann McMullen on June 27th, 1906 in the
  bleak industrial heartland of Tyne Dock, South Shields (then part of County
  Durham) and later moved to East Jarrow which is now in Tyne and Wear.
  
    
  
  She was the illegitimate daughter of Kate Fawcett, an alcoholic, whom she
  thought was her sister. She was raised by her grandparents, Rose and John
  McMullen. The poverty, exploitation and bigotry she experienced in her early
  yea