The Girl from Leam Lane

Born to an impoverished young Englishwoman in 1906, illegitimate and unwanted, Catherine Cookson lived a life marked by cruelty and neglect. At 22, reeling from a broken love affair, she left home in search of a new life. After five years in a workhouse laundry, she was finally able to

The author unlocks Cookson's complex character using her many books as the keys. Cookson had a tragic childhood and through her writing exorcised her own demons to triumph as an author.

This newly revised biography pieces together the uncensored details of Catherine Cookson's troubled and tempestuous life through a unique combination of previously unreleased material and Catherine's own, personal account. In addition to the original conversations between Catherine and Piers Dudgeon, it includes information contributed by some of those central figures

Books about Girl from Leam Lane

SPECTATOR BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015 Britain's empire has gone. Our manufacturing base is a shadow of its former self; the Royal Navy has been reduced to a skeleton. In military, diplomatic and economic terms, we no longer matter as we once did. And yet there is still one area