Catherine Cookson
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 1984
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Catherine Cookson is a very successful writer with 61 novels, all in print, to her name. But she was brought up in very poor circumstances on Tyneside by her mother, leaving school at the age of 13. In conversation with Roy Plomley, she talks about her days 'in service', about how she came to run a workhouse laundry, how eventually she became a full-time novelist, and she chooses the eight records she would take to the mythical island.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Thora by Adams/Wetherey Book: Her own autobiography Luxury: Piano
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For Wright's reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 1984 and the presenter was Roy Plumlee. Well, this week I'm visiting a fascinating house in Northumbria. |
| 0:34.4 | From the windows one can see Hadrian's war and there's a very picturesque stretch of the |
| 0:40.4 | river Tyne and there are forests and fells in the distance. |
| 0:44.0 | It's the house of a novelist, author of over 60 romantic and historical novels, |
| 0:50.0 | Catherine Cookson. |
| 0:51.0 | May I call you Roy? Please do, Catherine. |
| 0:54.0 | I just wanted to know me, please miss it. |
| 0:58.0 | And I'm going to pull you up straight away Roy. |
| 1:01.0 | I do not like that word romantic as I see a romance anything goes |
| 1:06.2 | everything's got to be larger than life but in a novel you've got to be realistic |
| 1:10.5 | and I am very realistic. Now we're taking you away and dumping you on an |
| 1:16.2 | island. It's a beautiful island but you won't be very comfortable, not as |
| 1:21.0 | comfortable as you are here. There will be some music. Is music important in your life? |
| 1:25.4 | It has a place, let us say that. |
| 1:27.4 | Can you make music, do you play at the piano? |
| 1:29.4 | Well, I play at it. You see, I had the chance of playing when our Kate, that was my mother, bought a piano, |
| 1:37.0 | well got it on the never, never, and believe it or not, she paid a hundred pounds for this piano in Sundland at |
| 1:46.8 | least you put her name down and where she got the five pounds to put down I |
| 1:50.3 | just don't know and this was for benefit. This was for my benefit because she |
| 1:54.1 | wanted me to be different and I took lessons at his chilling at time and after 18 months I |
... |
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