Winifred Cawley facts for kids

Winifred Cawley (born January 24, 1915 – died May 8, 2001) was an English author who wrote books for children. She is best known for her book Gran at Coalgate, which was published in 1974. For this book, she won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. This special award is given to a children's book by a panel of British children's writers. She was also a runner-up for the Carnegie Medal, which celebrates the best children's book written by a British author each year.

About Winifred Cawley's Life

Winifred Cawley grew up in Felton, Northumberland, England. Her parents worked as servants. She went to school in a nearby town called Wallsend-on-Tyne.

Education and Career

Winifred was very smart and earned a scholarship to study English at Newcastle University. Later, in 1937, she moved to University College London to get a diploma in teaching. She started studying for a master's degree but stopped when she married Arthur Clare Cawley.

After marrying, Winifred became a teacher. She taught in many different places around the world. This was because her husband worked for the British Council, an organization that promotes British culture and education. They lived in countries like Romania, Yugoslavia, and Egypt, as well as cities in the UK like Sheffield and Leeds, and even Brisbane, Australia.

Her Books

Winifred Cawley wrote her first novel, Down The Long Stairs, in 1964 while living in Brisbane, Australia. She sent it to Oxford University Press, a well-known publisher. She then wrote Feast of the Serpent in 1969. Her most famous book, Gran at Coalgate, came out in 1974. Her last novel was Silver Everything And Many Mansions in 1976.

All four of her novels are set in Northumberland, the area where she grew up.

• The first two books, Down The Long Stairs and Feast of the Serpent, are historical stories. They take place during the English Civil War in the 1640s.
• Gran at Coalgate tells a story about British coal miners. It talks about their struggles over wages and working hours, and a big strike that happened in 1926.
• Silver Everything And Many Mansions is based on Winifred's own life. It shares her experiences of growing up without much money in northeast England between the two World Wars.

Why Her Books Are Important

According to Julia Eccleshare, a children's book editor, Winifred Cawley's books were very important. They helped to start a trend called "social realism" in children's books. This means her stories showed what life was really like for children from less wealthy families. Before her time, there were not many books like this for kids.

Cawley's books helped to broaden what children's books could be about. They showed the importance of different social classes and the unique feel of specific places and regions.