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

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Well, I don't. I would have thought she was perceptive enough to see that her experiences with her family would have just been the same, even if she was growing up in Hampstead Heath and that it was nothing to do with Accrington.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

With the greatest of respect Garinda, I just think you are attempting to justify this ladies ramblings with amateur psychology. It would appear this was an article she wrote specially for the Times, and had plenty of time to 'choose' her words.

I'm sure such a high-profile lady of literature could have selected a better adjective ? (sorry, never grammar my best subject) than 'awful'. Even Doug has sent us a lovely piece of poetry to express the shortfalls of our area.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

She lives in trendy Spitalfields, a few hundred yards from where I'm writing this. I think she also has a pad in france. She is a chum of Tracey Emin; I used to see 'em togeather in a pub in the days when I was'nt lazy & used to walk home.

The interesting thing is that as well as banging out the odd article for the Times & the london Standard, she has a grocers shop, also in Spitalfields. It has all the trendy organic stuff in there, plus the old-fashioned preserves....plus sweets in a jar. In fact, it looks just like an Accy corner shop of the 1960's...odd that, init!

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

That's because, deep down, she really loves Accy!

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Aye....you can take the man out of Accy, but you can't take Accy out of the man (or woman...sorry girls)...:)

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I am not comparing myself with her, but we are of a similar age. Accrington wasn't probably the warmest of places for a teenage lesbian to grow up in the 60's and 70's, that's without all the evangelical mumbo jumbo that was hoisted upon her by her adopted parents. Like her, growing up I knew I would never be able to live in this part of the world and couldn't wait to escape to the big, anonymous capital. Happily I have a great, loving family and with marurity felt able to move back home.

I did briefly speak to her at a little soiree dahn the east end. We spoke of Lancashire we'd both grown up in and she wasn't negative in what she said to me.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

She was on TV a couple of weeks ago on the ABC. It was the South Bank Show, with Melvin Bragg, Nothing good to say about Accy, but the shots of Accy were great, especialy from the Copice. She did'nt seem to comfortble being back there, I tend to agree with you Wyn. I dont think she would be saying , to quote Mez, I love Accy thats why I moved back.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I met her in Spitalfields and a party given by the artists Gilbert and George, who lived next door to my ex in Fournier Street.

She was ok but no one I'd ever befriend. I found her a little too dry.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

The Observer article.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/paperbac...ticle_continue

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Gee i think some of us had those spells of feelings i did i'suppose it maybe a youth thing i dont know, but i left Accy moved 10miles away because i saw no future for me here at 17, i certainly had issues with my own parents & overcoming bullying from school i felt pre-judged & thats being a straight person lol i had issues with people that yeh i blamed the town for my misery. I think its one of those things you do & say when you move out & life in new pastures was better for you to grow as an individual, its easy to blame the town because that seemed the only logical explanation. I certainly learned that any town/city/place can be awful certainly when bad things or misery happens to you - then you realise the reality that its people not place, i moved back as the town i moved to became the 'source' of more misery & realised Accy was much better as they say grass isnt always greener LOL

Hey-ho 6yrs later i return back home to good old Accy worried that old feelings about me being back was gonna be right & well no thankfully proved me wrong been here ever since once i gave myself time to solve the real problem of putting past to bed & starting afresh here again, im enjoying my home!!!


Maybe if Ms Winterton had councellling for her past pain she could return to Accy & see it more in a different light - metaphorically its quite a beautiful picture once the smog clears :D

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Funny enough, I bumped into Gilbert about an hour and a half ago; I was head down in the paper coming out of the newsagents by the market and walked straight into him. Smartly attired as susual, with a whopping Panama hat. Somewhat oddly, George was not with him. I wonder if they've had a row?

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

He was probably still in the caff they go in like clock work every morning for their breakfast.:p

They used to spy on me sunbathing in the nuddy before I met them and I could tell some real tales about them...but you will have to wait for my book.:D

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Right on the money, Mel. I had my share of personal problems in my teenage years and I couldn't wait to move away when I was 18. I remember on my last day in Accy, walking over Whinney Hill , looking down and thinking "I'll be glad to get out of this place." Of course, the grass wasn't greener and the problems were still there, even though I was a hundred miles away. Got homesick after a few years and was happy to move back, until other reasons caused me to move down the road later on. If I could though, I'd move back tomorrow. Perhaps I'm too over-protective of the place now!

Her shop looks interesting, though. I was thinking of dropping in on my way to the Barnet match, but then I saw the prices...over five quid for a bar of chocolate? Definitely, for trendy Londoners only!

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Who are Gilbert & George?...they sound like some end-of-the-pier variety act!

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Gilbert & George are a pair of artists who have been around since the 1960's..they are the grand-daddies of modern British conceptual art. Best known work is "Sh*t in a Can"...plus a few other blasphemous images. they walk round the streets here like a pair of puffters, although rumour is one of 'ems supposed to be married.

Tracey Emin also lives and has her studio round here..she's the enfant terrible of conceptual art.(unmade bed, etc). About two years ago, her pussy went missing so naturally she blanketed the neighbourhood with "Have you seen this cat" posters which she did herself; naturally, they all got nicked as collectors items. Dunno what happened to the cat, though.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Thanks for enlightening me. What have I been missing all these years?

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Anyway, back to Jeanette.....this is her shop, taken from her website:

http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/verdes.asp

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Thanks for that, Gary. I was particularly interested in this quote "A number of works from the early 1970's consisted of the two of them getting drunk..."

I'm a performance artist and I never knew it!

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I wonder if the Accy Observer will pick up on this little tale...what would the story be.....

Uproar as Lesbo
author slags off
Accrington

The whole of Accrington was up in arms
last night after reading thats it's most
famoous literary daughter had described
the town as "Awful" in an article in last
saturday's Times.
Jeanette Winterson won the 1985 Whitbread
prize for her novel "Oranges are not the
Only Fruit".
The book has graphic desciptions of
seedy lesbian romps taking place
everywhere in Accy in the 1960's.
Yet Winterson claimed on saturday that
nowt really happened other than a daily
dose of bible bashing.

"She can't have it both ways" stated
Councillor Graham britcliffe "it was either a
hotbed of exotic sex or a puitans delight.
And she can't make the money from the town
and then rubbish us"

Ms Winterson was unavailable for
comment last night.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

For God's sake calm down, you'll be having a stroke next!

Stop pondering on any Sapphic couplings that may or may not have happened on top of the Coppice or in the bus shelters, or indeed on the Town Hall Steps.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Lmfao!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well if i see that in the Observer i will chuckle loudly for Accyweb LOL blimey then we'd know they are getting desperate for news or hoping for a purvy response for Mr PB pmsl!!!:D

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Oh please Garinda, don't tempt me to remark on this statement :eek:

I think fair comment by Tealeaf, I still feel very hurt by her comments and, as he said, her memories of Accrington has afforded her the benefit of a good deal of wealth.

Lots of things don't ring true to me though, and I would like to know more.
i.e. Garinda, you talk about an exorcism .. don't know much about the Pentecostal Church, but could this not be just some sort of ceremony that is adopted by this religion ? Like Christenings and Confirmations, which always seem a little extreme to me. Not saying for sure, you understand, just asking.

Also, she talks about only a handful of books in the house .. well, we couldn't afford many in my house when I was little and read the ones that were there over and over again.

Also, she talks about having to go and sit in her outside loo to read same and yet her article is about snuggling under the bed sheets to read them.

She attended Accy High .. so did I .. lot earlier than Jeanette did of course, they had an excellent library and could take them out to read at home.

Dunno ? some anomalies here which have grabbed my attention and that's not bad, as all very interesting at the end of the day.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

When the book was dramatised and afforded Accy and herself a lot of publicity, her mother denied what had been seen by many as an auto-biography by her daughter and said a lot of the things she wrote never happened. I know who I am more tempted to believe. I remember there was an interview with her mother in the Observer in the late '80's, if anyone has the patience to try and find it in the archives.

I think she has every right to describe Accrington anyway she likes. It's her memories of the place not ours.

Like I said earlier lesbianism wasn't very visible in the 70's to a young girl growing up in Accy then. The early 70's were pretty grim throughout Britain with strikes, power cuts and Morecambe and Wise considered the height of as entertainment on the box.

I found it grim here and from the age of seven knew I would have to move away if I wasn't going to be considered a freak.

Thity years later this freak doesn't give a f**k and happily moved back home.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Although I am not that religious … I remember Ms Winterson from Sunday School… she always seemed rather creepy to me so I did not really bother with her… I remember she was always first in any of the quizzes we had, and her Bible was like full of bits of paper scriptures and so on… In her book her writings about the Elm Church are basically a load of old Tripe and Blackpuddings…
She makes it sound like the entire congregation were a bunch of perverts…. Not the case: but it takes one to know one springs to mind:
She was just a plain Jane ( Jeanette) who did not appear to join in with the other kids…. I also remember her selling ice-creams…. Instead of slagging off her home town and parents…. She should bloody well do something ( PUBLICLY) for it:
My opinion on her book Oranges are not the only fruit is …. That the book is pure fantasy and crap:

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I think those that are critising J Winterstone's opening remarks in her Times newspaper article should perhaps appreciate her 'aweful' childhood (read "Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit') - then you would understand why she escaped (from her mother more than anything). It's not easy being gay in Accrington (I can vouch for that); isn't she right not want to tolerate bigots and prejudice when it presents itself? It seems things didn't really change much - if you saw the South Bank Show with J Winterstone and Melvyn Bragg coming out of Accrington Library and STILL having abuse yelled in her direction from a van driver, it was all rather embarassing! Interesingly she lives around the corner from me now in Spitalfields (London) (I believe she has a house in the country too). We should be proud of an Accrington lady who has done really well for herself AND has probably produced one of the finest written and funniest books on the town (WELL worth a read).

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I live in Accrington for the first 21 years of my life. I guess JW is simply comparing her life there to Oxford or wherever else she has lived.

I can't say I know how 60s Accrington was, but if you compare the sights of a small former mill town to the bright lights of the Metropolis, many may agree with her.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I remember Jeanette as I taught her at Peel Park junior school---- she was a strange child but memorable in many ways--- she always wore a yellow ribbon in her hair---- I have found in my many years of teaching that exceptionally gifted children always stick in my memory--- like Julie Hesmondhalgh., Mina Anwar, and others.Vickie Entwistle although I think she can do more than Coronation Street!!!

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Yesterdays Sunday Mail had a report on Christmas childrens books -they rated this one the best out of the four they had picked to review:
The Lion, Unicorn and Me by Jeanette Winterston

In this beautifully evocative retelling of the story of the very first Christmas, the humble donkey is chosen out of all the other animals, including the kingly lion and the proud unicorn. As his journey unfolds, he is touched by the magic and mystery of the Nativity…

The award-winning, world-renowned novelist Jeanette Winterson has created a masterful and deftly crafted story that sparkles with originality, humour and warmth. Perfectly completed by Rosalind MacCurrach’s stunning illustrations with twinkling gold detail, this gorgeous Christmas book will be cherished by families for years to com

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Here's the opening scene, young Jess running up Lee Road at Bacup, the bridge has now gone, the shop was on Farholme Lane Stacksteads

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Sorry I've muddled up my photos, this is Lee Road, Lee Mill, Bacup

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I read "Oranges..." and it was very good gave an insight to the girl I used to see regularly on the coppice walking a little Yorkshire Terrier, my brother Phil used to walk with her to School as he went to Accrington Grammer next to where she went and told stories about her being part of this strange Church where they healed people by faith and chanted etc. I tried to read her other Books but couldn't get into them.

I can understand how she feels about Accrington back in the 70's as I know the reaction we got when we got into punk rock, people didn't like it or get it, must have difficult to cope with her sexuality in Accy. However the book "Oranges..." does suggest her Mother was quite a positive influence on her, providing her with some challenges of life - she wasn't just slouching back on the couch bashing the bible supping holy water.

YouTube - Heading for the City by SGB.wmv

The link that has been posted to the Times article actually goes to a article dated; July 8th 2006, I don't know if they changed it?

Last time I came back to Accrington I did realise how it was positioned in quite a scenic position you get Pendle to the North, Whalley visible of the coppice it is a very green and pleasant area!

Nick Name a.k.a. Kestrel X

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

'The building is called the Gasworks, and I live in Gasworks Cottages, which is in one of the beautiful parts of the Cotswolds, but makes me feel like I am back home in Accrington in some industrial hovel.'
House restoration: the joy of wrecks - Times Online

Cheeky madam!

:eek:

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

But I cant help but admire her and what she has achieved in her lifetime.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

She makes me puke. She has no love for the town whatsoever, so thank god she's gone and let's hope she never comes back. As for her books, they are fit for one thing only - bog paper.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Insolent cow, but still she can come n dig my back yard up in summer, save Paris a job.:D

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

'Accrington's ugly, she says. "When I went back there recently, I looked and all the cobbled streets had been tarmacced and, even worse, they'd taken up all the York stone pavements, so they've compounded ugliness. It was never a picture-postcard place, Accrington, but it had a reasonably harmonious architecture. Now, it's abysmal."
Profiles and Interviews, New Scientist, Carol Ann Duffy, The Field Interview, Vintage Living Texts, Le Monde, Wall Street Journal, The Times

Beauty's in the eye of the beholder.

Though I agree about the sad loss of our York stone pavements.

Many of which were bought by wealthy novelists, to make terraces at their London and Cotswold homes.

:rolleyes:

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Saw her driving along Hyndburn Road in her mini a few weeks before Christmas!

Best Regards - Taggy

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

How do you know it was her for sure?

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Because my ex-wife used to go to Church with her, and i'd previously seen her in Asda on one of her visits here before, and she was in the same car as she was then!

Best Regards - Taggy

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

So perhaps she visits and has a drive round on the sly, they say the older you get, the stronger the desire to return to the place you were brought up becomes! :mosher:

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Not sure why she still pops up here. She used to still visit her adopted dad from time to time, but i think he ended up in a nursing home and passed away last year i think. Perhaps there were still things to sort out after his passing. When we saw her in Asda a couple of years back, it was again just before xmas, and she was in the clothes section buying childrens clothes, i assume for friends children!!

Best Regards - Taggy

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

The film is on at 10.30 p.m tonight on BBC 4.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

...so there was I, having wandered back from the pub at 10.50 - an early night - switched on t'telly to watch an hour of CSI NewYork and what happened? I pressed the button for BBC4 by mistake and what did I get? Only this garbage. For the first ten minutes or so I couldn't make head nor tail of it and then I clicked on the guide.

So this was supposed to be late '60's Accy? Gob****e! Everything was wrong, rangeing from the architecture to the school - supposidly a primary school, but it looked like a secondary mod. to me. I see on the credits that it was adapted from the book by Mz. Winterton herself. Well, thank god I never read the book.

However, worse is to come...there's another episode on next week. I wonder how much this nonsense has cost the honest license fee payer? An absolute disgrace - shame on you, BBC.

Anyway, I've now got Mad Men on t'other channel. why can't the BBC make summat like this, instead of having to buy it in?

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Yes, only realised in four parts when it finished.

Did actually really enjoy it Tealeaf .. the acting is superb and many comic moments .. will look out for it next week. Was a repeat from 1990. Sorry, but don't mind paying my licence fee at all for this excellence. No .. not sorry at all .. was brilliant. :p

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Some of the acting was superb, though Melanie was a bit wet, and not just from having her velvet tipped.

Teabag just feels left out. As he would have benefited from being tied up for the weekend as a child, and exorcised by a load of religious nutters.

It would've been character building.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Well, I suppose that for someone whose normal TV highlight of the week would be an hour in front of the QVC shopping channel, it would be brilliant.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Cheeky !

Anyway, I watch Corrie too so there !... :p

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Young Jess, Emily Aston, is Chesney's real life sister.

Small world, Planet Ginger.

:D

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Wow .. you are such a fountain of knowledge Garinda .. :) Thought she was amazing ... the line when she told the ice cream man that the people next door were fornicating was one of the best delivered lines I had heard for a long time.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

She was brilliant, as young Jess. The whole family of Aston kids are good actors.

Sad watching it now, knowing that actor Charlotte Coleman, who played older Jess, died such a tragic death.

As for cost, being one of the most successful programmes the B.B.C. produced in the eighties, as well as all the awards it received, it was sold all over the world, so paid for it's production costs many times over.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

She's going to be on BBC 1 Breakfast at some point tomorrow (Weds) morning!


Best Regards - Taggy

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Saw her on the Beeb this morn..she was promoting the 25th Anniversary edition of the Oranges book!!


Best Regards - Taggy

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I managed to catch Jeannette on the BBC news Am last week, just by accident really. How does she manage to remain so Jolly?

Saw last part of "Oranges..." last night and I wonder if it had stood the test of time? I enjoyed it the first time but perhaps that is the mystique of watching a story about someone who was a part of your childhood, regardless of however distant she was, but I always recall stories of "odd goings on" at the Church she attended i.e. faith healing, chanting and excorcisms lol - bit like the bogey man over the Coppice.

I couldn't help seeing that the charcter Jesse was just JW's alter ego.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Is there a particular reason why she shouldn't be Jolly??


Best Regards - Taggy

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

"I couldn't help seeing that the charcter Jesse was just JW's alter ego."
I agree (having bought it on DVD) it's autobiographic
Here's a photo of the opening sequance
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/rossend...y/4119988972/]

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

She, herself sees the book as fiction, based on autobiography, which seems to be backed up by the fact that it won the Whitbread Award for a First Novel in 1985.

From Jeanette Winterson's own website...

'Is it autobiographical?'

'Yes and no. All writers draw on their experience but experience isn't what makes a good book. As the stand-up comics say, 'It's the way you tell 'em'. Oranges is written in the first person, it's direct and uninhibited, but it isn't autobiography in the real sense. I have noticed that when women writers put themselves into their fiction, it's called autobiography. When men do it, such as Paul Auster or Milan Kundera it's called meta -fiction.'
Oranges are not the Only Fruit, Whitbread Award for best first fiction for the semi-autobiographical, religious excess and human obsession

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Is Karen Buckley - with all her bible bashing and exocism's - actually Jeanette Winterston in disguise?

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

one of the church goers in the film (Mrs Green) is based on my friends late mother

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Besides not being 'strawberry blond', Jeanette was the bashed, and exorcised, so it's doubtful Karen Buckley could play the part of the protagonist.

Perhaps she might consider another character, central to the action.

Mother, perhaps?

Since she's strong on 'family values', and they carry out exorcisms at Baptist churches in Lytham.

:rolleyes:

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Is she famous for anything else , one 'notable' book in 25 years is hardly a catalog of a lifetime spent in the persuit of literature . :rolleyes: :confused:

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

She's won subsequent literary awards, for other books.

She's almost certainly in the top five of the most visible female writers in the country, helped by her journalism and television appearances.

Her books are listed here...

Jeanette Winterson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Don't forget her corner shop, down near me. Someone on here posted that they'd seen her in Accy ASDA; she was probably buying in 20kilos of tomatos at £1.78/kg to take back to London and flog 'em off in the shop as 'Accy's finest organic', at ten quid a kilo...a nice little earner.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Tomatoes are not the only fruit....she might do bananas too.

:D

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I'll check it out....I'm up by Spitalfields market tomorrow dinnertime.

I'll ask if Jeanettes in and I'll also ask if she does discounts for honest Accy folk, like myself.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

She was buying Kids clothing actually!!;)

Best Regards - Taggy

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

:eek: MR thats terrible lol

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Personally, I think Jeanette has as much right as any other victim of child abuse (that's basically what the "exorcisms" were) and homophobia to say what she likes about the town where she had to live through those experiences. As a victim of bullying at that baleful hellhole, Accrington Grammar School, I entirely sympathise.

And yet despite all that, she is still one of the best British novelists currently writing.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I don't think anyone's denying her talent, or the fact she's lucky to have the skills to write of her experiences growing up in Accrington in the sixties/seventies, or her prominence in the literary world.

Let's just hope there are fewer Jess's receiving the same treatment today.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Another whinger jumping on the abuse bandwagon. I suppose you'll be sueing Lancashire County Council next, demanding ten million quid in damages for childhood emotional trauma, incurred in the 50's and 60's. It's total crap. What you experianced was character building and if you don't realise that, you must be a total wimp.

And as regards Winterston...I would rather read a Katie Price autobiography than that sh**e.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

We all know that you are really doubly proud of the association.

There's the Accrington one, and your own, as a close neighbour in the capital.

The next thing we'll hear is that you've bought a camper van, and parked up in her Cotswold village.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

And I suppose you were one of the bullies were you? Wouldn't be surprising from someone who could call Gilbert & George "a pair of puftahs."

Get back to the '50's, you throwback.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Suheir Hammad, Hisham Matar, Ali Smith and Jeanette Winterson | Southbank Centre.

Jeanette is appearing at the South Bank in April.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Hey...do you mind...we try to be civilised on this website.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I hope the taxpayer won't be paying for this rubbish.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

What's civilised about calling someone a puftah, homophobe?

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

My sincere apologies. This was an incorrect posting.

I should have said Gilbert & George were a pair of 'Perverted Puffters'.

Happy now?

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

So not just a bully, but a bigot too. And ignorant. What else can I expect from that ****hole of a town, Accrington?

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

But I'm not in Accy...I'm in the East End, in London, just like your heroine, Ms. Winterston. Aye, I'm now a soft southern sophisto.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I hope they take it directly out of your pocket.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

If they do, I'll go round and nick it back from Jeanettes shop.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

I'll be sure to visit you in prison.

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

Is that where you are now? So how much longer have you to go?

Re: Jeanette Winterston - famous novelist
 

One of them used to spy on me when I was sunbathing, when we were next door neighbours in Fournier St.

Which one wears the jam jar bottoms?

I'm not saying there was anything untowards happening. They probably just viewed me as some sort of inspirational muse.

:D