Catherine Cookson is known and loved for her vibrant and earthy novels set in and around the North-East of England, past and present. Her autobiography makes plain how it is she who knows her background and her characters so well. The "Our Kate" of the title is not Catherine Cookson, but her mother, around whom the autobiography revolves. Despite her faults, Kate emerges a warm and loveable human figure. "Our Kate" is an honest statement about living with hardship and poverty, seen through the eyes of a highly sensitive child and woman, whose zest for life and unquenchable sense of humour won through to make Catherine Cookson the warm, engaging and human writer she is today.