Her books were inspired by her deprived youth in South Shields (historically part of County Durham), North East England, the setting for her novels.

Cookson, registered as Catherine Ann Davies, was born on 20 June 1906[1][2] at 5 Leam Lane[3] in Tyne Dock, South Shields, County Durham, England.

The illegitimate child of an alcoholic named Kate Fawcett, she grew up thinking her unmarried mother was her sister, as she was brought up by her grandparents, Rose and John McMullen.

[5] Biographer Kathleen Jones tracked down her father, whose name was Alexander Davies, a bigamist and gambler from Lanarkshire, Scotland.

In 1929, she moved south to run the laundry at Hastings Workhouse, saving every penny to buy a large Victorian house, and then taking in lodgers to supplement her income.

After experiencing four miscarriages[8] late in pregnancy, it was discovered she was suffering from a rare vascular disease,[4] telangiectasia, which caused bleeding from the nose, fingers, and stomach and resulted in anaemia.

[16] It was on television, however, that she had her greatest media success, with a series of dramas that appeared over the course of a decade on ITV and achieved huge ratings.

The first film to be made, The Fifteen Streets[17] starring Sean Bean and Owen Teale, was nominated for an Emmy award in 1990.

Some £40,000 was given to provide a laser to help treat bleeding disorders and £50,000 went to create a new post in ear, nose, and throat studies, with particular reference to the detection of deafness in children.

[19] Her foundation continues to make donations to worthy causes in the UK, particularly those offering services to young people and cultural ventures, such as the Tyneside Cinema.

[24][25] In later life, Cookson and her husband, Tom, returned to the North East and settled first in Haldane Terrace, Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne.

[6] For the last few years of her life she was bed-ridden,[26] and she gave her final TV interview to North East Tonight, the regional ITV Tyne Tees news programme, from her sickbed.

[28] In 1992, the inaugural Catherine Cookson Prize took place and was won by author Val Wood and her debut novel, The Hungry Tide, which subsequently went on to become a best-seller.