Alfred
Wainwright MBE
(1907-1991)
Alfred Wainwright was born in Audley Range, Blackburn, Lancashire,
the son of a stonemason, in 1907. Wainwright was educated at
Blakey Moor School and at the age of 13 he became an office
boy in Blackburn Borough Engineer's Department. But it was at
the age of 23 during a holiday visit to the Lake District that
he began a lifelong love affair with the Lakeland Fells. In
1941 he was appointed to a position in the Borough Treasurers
Office in Kendal in Southern Lakeland, and went on to serve
as Borough Treasurer from 1948 until he retired in 1967. He
spent the rest of his life as a resident of Kendal, and it was
here that he began making pen and ink drawings of the fells.
His now famous pictorial walking guides (the 'Wainwright Guides')
to the Lakeland fells, accompanied by his own hand-drawn maps
and illustrations, made between 1952 and 1966, a series of 7
guides in all, have all become classics of their kind and are
still definitive best-sellers with walkers and ramblers in the
Lake District. The 214 fells described in his Pictorial Guides
are now generally known as "the Wainwrights". He also
made and published many other guides, including the Pennine
Way and the Derbyshire Dales, as well as a substantial portfolio
of drawings and sketches including drawings of the Eden valley
and a Furness Sketchbook. In 1972 Wainwright devised the Coast
to Coast Walk, which traversed the north of England from St
Bees on the west coast to Robin Hood's Bay on the east coast.
Wainwright died on 20 January 1991 and a memorial to him can
be found in the church at Buttermere. His ashes were scattered
above the village on his favourite Lakeland
mountain, Haystacks.
Howard
Jacobson
(Born
1942)
Novelist, critic, columnist and broadcaster Howard Jacobson
was born in Prestwich in 1942, the son of a Manchester market
trader. He was educated at Stand Grammar School in Whitefield
and went on study at Cambridge University. He worked as a lecturer
at the University of Sydney for three years before returning
to teach English at Selwyn College.
In the 1970s he went on to tech at the Wolverhampton Polytechnic,
which provided the source material his first novel, "Coming
From Behind" published in 1983. Others of his novels
include the satirical comedy "Peeping Tom" (1984),
"The Very Model of a Man" (1992), "No
More Mister Nice Guy" (1998), and in 1999 "The
Mighty Walzer" based on the Jewish community in Manchester
during the 1950s. This book was awarded the Bollinger Everyman
Wodehouse and the 'Jewish Quarterly' Literary Prize for Fiction
in 2000.
Next came, in 2002, "Who's Sorry Now", followed
by "The Making of Henry" in 2004.
An 'Arena' television documentary on Howard Jacobson, entitled
'My Son the Novelist', was broadcast on BBC2 in 1985,
and his work featured in an edition of ITV's 'South Bank
Show', in 1999.
Jacobson explored his own Jewishness ins two non-fiction books:
"Roots Schmoots: Journeys Among Jews" in 1993,
and "Seriously Funny: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime"
in 1997. He has also made two television programmes: in 2000,
'Howard Jacobson Takes on the Turner', on Channel 4, and in
2002, a 'South Bank Show' special entitled 'Why the
Novel Matters'. He also authored of a travel book about
Australia, "In the Land of Oz" in 1987. In
2006 he published "Kalooki Nights".
In October 2010 he won the prestigious £50,000 Booker
Prize for his novel "The Finkler Question",
a humorous look at Jewish culture.
(Born
1935)
Author, Playwright, Screenwriter Trevor Griffiths was born on
April 4th 1935 in Ancoats, Manchester of Irish and Welsh decent.
He attended the local Catholic school and entered Manchester
University in 1952 to read English. He was for a short time
a professional footballer, followed by one year's National Service,
before he became a teacher and Liberal Studies lecturer and
a further education officer for the BBC before becoming a full
time writer in 1970.
He has been writing for the theatre, television and cinema since
the late 1960s, his work having won numerous awards. Perhaps
his best known stage play was "Comedians",
(1975). He received a Best Screenplay Award and an Oscar nomination
for his film "Reds", written with and starring
Warren Beatty. Other notable films to his credit have included
"Country" directed by Richard Eyre and "Fatherland"
directed by Ken Loach.
Since the 1980s he has directed his own work in the theatre
and on film. In 1997 the BBC broadcast his made-for-television
film "Food for Ravens" which he both wrote
and directed. He is also well known for his adaptations of works
by writers like D H Lawrence and Chekhov.
Trevor Griffiths's published plays include "These Are
The Times, a Life of Thomas Paine", "Theatre Plays
One" and "Theatre Plays Two".
Anna
Jacobs
Though
Anna Jacobs now lives in Australia, she was born and bred in
Rochdale, and now makes her living as a novelist writing books
set in Lancashire - mainly historical sagas. She currently has
34 novels published and more in the pipeline, and her work is
ranked regularly in the UK best-seller charts. Coming out in
January 2006 is 'Pride of Lancashire', Book One in a
series about the early days of the music hall in Lancashire,
when there were music saloons attached to pubs.
A
prolific writer, Anna writes novels under several names and
uses the pen names Shannah Jay when writing science fiction
and fantasy, and Sherry-Anne Jacobs when writing historical
novels. Her recent romantic novels include 'Twopenny Rainbows',
'Marrying Miss Martha', and 'Our Mary Ann', all published
in 2004.
With
several recognised and authoritative books on the subject, she
is now regarded as a major authority on the genre, and is much
in demand to speak and lecture on this and related subjects,
as well as having published books on the subject, including
'An Introduction to Romance Writing', and 'Plotting
& Editing'.
Other
works, including 'Calico Road', 'Wishing Well' and 'An
Independent Woman', were all published in Australia in 2005,
as well as ''Threepenny Dreams' - though most are now
available in paperback in the UK and other Commonwealth countries.
A
feature article about her life and work was recently published
in 'Lancashire Life' magazine, and in April 2005 she
was invited to talk about her work in Ellesmere Port Library.
More
about Anna Jacobs and her work can be found on her website at
www.annajacobs.com - Anna Jacobs photo supplied by the author.
Carol
Ann Duffy CBE, FRSL
Poet Laureate
(Born
1955)
Carol Ann Duffy was born on 23 December 1955) into a Roman Catholic
family in the Gorbals, a very poor part of in Glasgow, the first
child of Scot Frank Duffy and May Black, both of Irish descent.
She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan
University, and was appointed Britain's poet Laureate in May
2009, the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly
bisexual person to hold the position.
Her collections include "Standing Female Nude"
(1985), winner of a Scottish Arts Council Award; "Selling
Manhattan" (1987), which won a Somerset Maugham Award;
"Mean Time" (1993), which won the Whitbread
Poetry Award; and "Rapture" (2005), winner
of the T S Eliot Prize. Her poems address issues such as oppression,
gender, and violence, in an accessible language that has made
them popular in schools. Her poet, "Last Post",
was commissioned by the BBC to mark the deaths of Henry Allingham
and Harry Patch, the last two British soldiers to fight in World
War I. Most recently, her poem "Vigil" was written
specially for the Manchester Pride candlelight vigil in remembrance
of lesbian, bisexual and gay people who have lost their lives
to HIV and AIDS.
Her poems are widely studied in British schools at GCSE, A-level,
and Higher levels and she is widely acknowledged to have done
more to help popularise British poetry than any other poet alive
today. In 2002 she was made a CBE (Commander of the British
Empire).
(1882–
1958)
Harold
Brighouse was born in Eccles, Salford on 26th July 1882. He
attended a local school, before winning a scholarship to the
Manchester Grammar School. After leaving school he worked
for a time as a textile buyer in a shipping merchant's office
and in 1902 he was sent to help set up a London office. There
he met Emily Lynes aand they were married in 1907. In 1908
he returned to Manchester to become a full time writer. He
is probably best known for his play "Hobson's Choice".
Along with Allan Monkhouse and Stanley Houghton he was part
of a group known as the Manchester School of Dramatists.
Early writings included "Lonesome Like" and
"The Doorway", which was performed at Annie
Horniman's Gaiety Theatre in Manchester in 1909. Three
of his works, all set in his native Lancashire, "The
Northerners", "Zack" and "The Game"
were published together under the title 'Three Lancashire
Plays' in 1920. But it was his most well known play "Hobson's
Choice" which is most celebrated, having been performed
in many theatres in Britain and America, as well as the 1953
film by David Lean.
Brighouse also wrote novels, including "Hepplestalls",
about a 19th century Lancashire mill-owning family, as well
as reviews and other pieces for the Manchester Guardian
Newspaper. He was a member of the Dramatists' Club
and in 1930–31 was chairman of the Society of Authors'
dramatic committee. His autobiography "What I Have
Had" was published in 1953.
Declared to be unfit for service in the First World War, he
later joined the Royal Air Corps, and was seconded to the
Air Ministry Intelligence Staff. In 1919 he moved to Hampstead,
London.
Harold Brighouse died in London on 25 July 1958, aged 76,
in Charing Cross Hospital after collapsing the day earlier
in The Strand.
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