My Land of the North - published as CATHERINE COOKSON COUNTRY by Heinemann in 1986 - is her own account of her harsh upbringing in the industrial North East, and the effect that its poverty, exploitation and bigotry had on her life and her writing. Grim though her early life undoubtedly was, it aroused such strong feelings and deep emotions in her that she fed off them for her ideas and characters for the rest of her life. And in the company of her best-loved fictional creations she writes passionately about Tyneside and its people who meant so much to her.