A Songbird’s extraordinary tune

Above: Josephine Cox

Above: Songbird

Above: Josephine Cox

ON a recent visit to her native Blackburn, Josephine Cox signed the 15 millionth book to
bear her name. It's a phenomenal statistic and only a fool would challenge her claim she was 'meant to be a writer.'

This spritely but petite woman looks much younger than her 67 years and her remarkable career means she has all the trappings of an extremely successful novelist. But it's a veneer which hides what would be, by any measure, a hard life.

Her writing career was encouraged by her mother, dismissed by her drunken father and it has undoubtedly been influenced by the events of a childhood steeped in poverty.
Despite the past hardships she possesses a natural exuberance.

She loves life, loves getting up in the morning and she has loved tackling the challenges life has thrown at her - whether working as a painter preparing bricks for firing, making tips for cigarettes, as a cosmetics counter assistant in Woolworths or as a schoolteacher. She's even driven a lorry. ‘You have to do what you have to do to pay
the bills,’ she says. ‘There's no point in doing any of it if you don't enjoy it.’

It's no surprise to learn that her husband and sons marked the publication of her first book by entering her into a ‘Superwoman of Britain’ competition run to honour people
who had overcome hardships. Even less surprising to know she beat 4,000 rivals to the first prize of £1,000. She's a big believer in fate and destiny, citing two events in particular as setting her on the road to a career as a novelist.

The first was declining a place at Cambridge. The second was in hospital with a serious illness, which finally gave her the chance to get her first novel, Her Father's Sins, down on paper.

‘I got married when I was 16 and had two boys,’ says Josephine. ‘We were struggling to pay the mortgage and to pay the bills so I went out to work and didn't really have time
to write that first book. To be honest it was a case of it already being written in my heart and soul, but I just needed the time and place to physically put it down on paper.

‘Then I was taken ill. I was in hospital for six weeks and finally had the chance to write it. I wrote it in five weeks.’ Since then Josephine has written 36 novels, as well as six
darker, more frightening tales under the pen name Jane Brindle - her mother's maiden name.

Now living near Bedfordshire, Josephine was born in Blackburn in 1941, the fourth of ten children, seven boys and three girls, she grew up in slums. She first started making money from her stories as a child, gaining the odd penny for the gas meter by telling made-up stories to friends among the rubble of a bombed out community.

‘My mam always used to tell me that I would be a writer,’ says Josephine. ‘When I was 11, I won a short story competition at school, she was so proud.’ Her pregnant mother decided she'd had enough of her drunken husband and left him, moving south and taking five of her children with her. Josephine, 14, was one of them.

She met and married her husband Ken (who died of cancer in 2002) when she was just 16 but her father refused to give her away. ‘We had two sons,’ she says. ‘When they were eight or nine, I decided that because I'd played truant a lot at school and had left with no qualifications, I'd missed out. I went back to night school and got my O and A levels.

‘Then I applied for teacher training college, did three years there and passed my exams for Cambridge, but I didn't take up the place because they wouldn't let me travel in every day. I had two little boys and couldn't split my family up like mine was split. I've never regretted it. I went straight into teaching and stayed for 14 years.’

Blackburn has never been far from her thoughts, however: ‘Blackburn is my roots,’ she says. ‘But it has changed quite a lot, its very diversified now and some of the old landmarks have been taken down. ‘I've got wonderful memories of childhood there but it's hard going home now because things have changed so much.

I haven't been to the centre of town for about four years, simply because I know they are redeveloping it. There are two places that have been knocked down and that particularly upset me. The first was the Market Hall Clock. It was a mini Big Ben, the place where we all used to meet as children.

‘On one visit I went to the cotton mill where mum used to work. I used to meet her there after school. They were in the process of demolishing it and I just ran away I was
so upset - it's not just bricks and mortar for me, but memories as well.

‘I do come north several times a year because I've got my family here, brothers, nieces and nephews. I'm very close to my brothers, they stayed with my dad when mum
left. I think that when a family breaks up like ours did, that it brings the children closer together. There's the sense of loss of being taken away from one parent so you don't
want to lose your brothers and  sisters. I think the bond grows stronger.’

The proof that Blackburn is never too far from her thoughts is the stories, described as strong, gritty stories from a rough tapestry of life. The characters are often based on the real-life people she knew while growing up.

Some, she says, have recognised themselves but none seem to have minded too much.
The one person who goes into every book is her mother. ‘She had a very difficult life, so with every book I write I keep her memory alive. She can be a little boy, an old woman or a young woman but the personality of that character will be my mother. Just lately something very remarkable has happened, readers are beginning to recognise which
character has the heart and soul of my mother.

‘When people ask what is important when writing a book, people will say ‘plot, characters, where it's set?’, but nobody ever mentions the emotions. ‘Your emotions - joy, laughter, fear - all play a huge part in writing a book. You have to feel what each character feels so that when the reader reads it they feel it too.

‘Sometimes I'm laughing while I'm writing. Other times I can be breaking my heart, and you have to keep all those emotions, those feelings of all the different characters safe inside you on a day to day basis, until the book is finished.’ ?