Part of Series
When Mary Ann is sent from her native Tyneside to become a pupil at a high-class convent boarding school on the South Coast, the idea in her benefactor’s mind was that she should be turned into a little lady. In this, the third story in the Mary Ann series, Mary Ann is seen again as that irrepressible child of Tyneside in all her cheeky delightfulness. As usual, however, despite the seemingly over-powering difficulties, everything is sorted out satisfactorily in the end.
Author
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.
