Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Jeanette was born 27th August 1959 in Manchester. She was brought up in Water Street, Accrington and adopted by Constance and John William Winterson, who were strict Christians. By the time she was eight years old she was writing and preaching sermons!

She went to Accrington High School for Girls. At the age of 16 she fell in love with another woman and left home after falling out with her parents.

She had many jobs to begin with, including driving an ice cream van, she was a porter in a phychiatric hospital and preparing corpses in an undertakers parlour. She had only ever heard of two universities - Oxford and Cambridge. She actually went down to Oxford,managed to get an interview and asked outright could she go there! They smiled at her and said, come back in 12 months time when you have passed your 'A' levels! She did! She went to St Catherine's College at Oxford University, obtaining a BA in English in 1981. She then moved to London and worked in publishing. She is known for many works, her main one being "Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit" which she began writing at the age of 23. It was a true but comic account of growing up with a religious background with serious issues re identity, sexuality and relationships. It won a Whitbread First Novel Award in 1985. It was turned into a drama on BBC TV in 1990 and won an award.

Another of our famous people, not always known about.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

"Oranges are not the only fruit" was recorded in the church up brunshaw estate in Burnley where i used to live.
Rimington Avenue was the place where it was........i lived dead acroos the road!

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

dont know her but know of the the book if that makes sense lol

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

She went to school with my sister.

Boring, but true. ;)

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

saw "oranges" when it was first televised and really enjoyed it,the fact that shes an accy lass makes it better,ta didn't know that.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

This lady should be struck off the Hall of Fame after her rubbishing the town in last saturday's Times. Here is the article...don't bother goung beyond the first line:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...3-2258981.html

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Oh dear, Tealeaf, that's not very nice, is it ? Has thrown a different light on this lady to me now. Definitely not doing her any favours if she wishes to sell any of her work around here. :(

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Awful Accrington, eh?...well, I suppose she's happy enough in whatever trendy part of London she lives in...and I sincerely hope she stays there!

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

She's always been very open about her hatred of her childhood - 'oranges' was semi autobiographical.

I wrote to her some time ago because we were looking for a well known author to read at The Vagina Monologues, her reply was that if there had been things like that going on when she was here she might not have left.

I think that she's a lesbian and therefore had trouble with her mother and strict upbringing. Also, I think she now lives in America but I'm not sure about that.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Gayle, there was plenty going on in Accrington in the 60's, just obviously wrapped in her own little world and not looking. Just fobbin' you off. Can see why Vagina might appeal to her though. :D

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

OK, so she didn't get on with her parents...is that any reason to slag off her home town?

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

If she had bad experiences with her family, she's transferred it all onto the town - totally understand it.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

She wasn't negative about Accrington in an interview in the Observer the other Sunday. Strange.

Perhaps being exorcised in front of the congregation of her church, at the behest of her fanatical parents, coloured her judgement of that time.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Quite often the press embellish on the wanderings of our thoughts. Accrington can be many things to different people, the flow of passions within our past can make us say the most unkind and unmeant things. I myself have loved it, hated it, cried over it; above all else I have always missed it.

Oranges was excellent, I saw her giving interviews way back, I think her disappointments reflected her relationships with people, not her Town.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Accrington where did you go
Why did you change?
What did you do with the memory of my childhood?
Where went the warmth of mother hood

So many son, lost to the guns,
So many daughters, God brought us
So easily parted, the consumption taught us
The misery that dank mills brought us

Accrington where did you go
Your cobbled Streets
Bleak back yards
Unlit paths to memories roads

Deathly dark Pits that the Devil strode
Bleak graves where the grass as grown
Broken widows, broken stone
I miss you Accrington, you where my home