The Woman of Substance. Piers Dudgeon

      

       The Woman of Substance

      THE SECRET LIFE THAT INSPIRED

      THE RENOWNED STORYTELLER

      Barbara Taylor Bradford was born and raised in England. She started her writing career on the Yorkshire Evening Post and later worked as a journalist in London. Her first novel, A Woman of Substance, became an enduring bestseller and was followed by twenty-five others, including the bestselling Harte series. Barbara’s books have sold more than eighty-one million copies worldwide in more than ninety countries and forty languages, and ten mini-series and television movies have been made of her books. In October of 2007, Barbara was appointed an OBE by the Queen for her services to literature. She lives in New York City with her husband, television producer Robert Bradford.

      Piers Dudgeon is the author of many works of nonfiction. He worked for ten years as an editor in London, before starting his own publishing company and producing books with authors as diverse as John Fowles, Catherine Cookson, Peter Ackroyd, Daphne du Maurier, Shirley Conran, Ted Hughes and Susan Hill. In 1993, he left London for the North York Moors, where he has written biographies of Sir John Tavener, Edward de Bono, Catherine Cookson, Josephine Cox, J M Barrie and Daphne du Maurier. He is currently working on a series of oral histories of post-industrial Britain and a book about the poet Ted Hughes’s childhood.

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

List of Illustrations

Preface

PART ONE

The Party

Beginnings

       Edith

       The Abyss

       PART TWO

       A New Start?

       Getting On

       The Jeannie Years

       Change of Identity

       Coming Home

       An Author of Substance

       Hold the Dream

       Novels by Barbara Taylor Bradford

       Index

       Acknowledgements

       Keep Reading

       Also by the Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

       Section 1

       1. Barbara’s mother, Freda Walker, a nurse at Ripon Fever Hospital in 1922. (Bradford Photo Archive)

       2. Freda in her early twenties with Tony Ellwood, the child she brought up in Armley, Leeds, before marrying Winston Taylor. (Bradford Photo Archive)

       3. Winston Taylor, Barbara’s father as a boy of sixteen in the Royal Navy. (Bradford Photo Archive)

       4. Winston’s sister, Laura, the model for Laura Spencer in A Woman of Substance. (Bradford Photo Archive)

       5. Map of Armley, dated 1933, the year Barbara was born.

       6. Barbara’s parents, Winston and Freda Taylor in 1929, the year they were married. (Bradford Photo Archive)

       7. Barbara at two years, walking in Gott’s Park, Armley. (Bradford Photo Archive)

       8. Tower Lane, Armley, site of Barbara’s first home.

       9. No. 38 Tower Lane as it is today.

       10. The Towers, the gothic row of mansions in Tower Lane, one of which became Emma Harte’s home in A Woman of Substance.

       11. Armley Christ Church School, which Barbara attended with playwright Alan Bennett.

       12. Freda and daughter Barbara – ‘the kind of little girl who always looked ironed from top to toe’. (Bradford Photo Archive)

       13. Barbara aged three. (Bradford Photo Archive)

       14. Christ Church Armley, where Barbara was baptised and received her first Communion.

       15. Barbara as a fairy in a Sunday School pantomime. (Bradford Photo Archive)

       16. Barbara with bucket and spade, aged five on holiday at Bridlington. (Bradford Photo Archive)

      17 and 18. Leeds Market, where Marks & Spencer began and the food halls in Emma Harte’s flag-ship store in A Woman of Substance were inspired. (Yorkshire Post and Leeds Library)

       19. Top Withens, the setting for Wuthering Heights. (Yorkshire Tourist Board)

       20. ‘The roofless halls and ghostly chambers’ of Middleham Castle, North Yorkshire. (Skyscan Balloon Photography, English Heritage)

       Section 2

       21. 1909 Map of Ripon, when Barbara’s mother, Freda, was five.

       22. Ripon Minster. (Ripon Library)

       23. Ripon Market Place as Freda and her mother, Edith, knew it. (Ripon Library)

       24. The Wakeman Hornblower, who still announces the watch each night at 9 p.m. (Ripon Library)

      25. Water Skellgate in 1904, the year that Edith Walker gave birth there to Freda. (Ripon Library)

       26. The stepping stones on the Skell where Freda fell. (Ripon Library)

       27. One of Ripon’s ancient courts, like the one where Freda was born.

       28. Freda dressed in her best at fourteen. (Bradford Photo Archive)

       29. Studley Royal Hall, home of the Marquesses of Ripon. (Ripon Library)

       30. Fountains Hall, on which Pennistone Royal in the Emma Harte novels is based. (Ripon Library)

       31. Edith Walker, Barbara’s maternal grandmother. (Bradford Photo Archive)