Go Tell it to Mrs. Golightly

By Catherine Cookson

1977

First Published

4.28

Average Rating

192

Number of Pages

5H49M

Audio Length

‘The child was bright, the voice on the phone had said; and quite normal…’ Why had they said that? They were holding something back. He had felt it from the very first. Was she a cripple, he had asked? No, the voice had said, she wasn’t a cripple. It had something that sounded like a handicap, then it had ceased abruptly. This was the gist of the telephone conversation in which Joe Dodd agreed to take in a granddaughter he had never seen – just for the school holidays. Nine-year-old Bella was blind and had had a hard life alone with a drunken father whom her grandfather had eventually refused to treat as his son. Now she was coming to her grandfather almost without warning – and he hated women – all women. She had to learn about her new surroundings and about her grandfather. She also had to get to know John Thompson, an older boy who had been asked to ‘help’ her. Bella did not want to be helped; she wanted to be accepted as herself, clever, forthright, brave and loving – a person, not an encumbrance. In all her trials the thing that most sustained her was the memory of her friend, Mrs. Golightly, and the pungent wit for which that lady was renowned. Soon Bella was to need every scrap of help those memories could give, for out of the blue came real danger for her, for John and for a most important stranger.

Avg Rating

4.28

Number of Ratings

193

5 STARS

50%

4 STARS

34%

3 STARS

12%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Catherine Cookson

Author · 111 books

Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, who Catherine believed was her older sister. Catherine began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married Tom Cookson, a local grammar-school master. Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer - her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 - her readership quickly spread throughout the world, and her many best-selling novels established her as one of the most popular contemporary woman novelist. She received an OBE in 1985, was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1993, and was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1997. For many years she lived near Newcastle upon Tyne.