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Myers Literary Guide:
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The North-East
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WINIFRED FINLAY (1910 - 1989) Winifred Finlay was born in Newcastle and attended Kings College, where she met her future husband. She taught and lectured in Newcastle 1933-35, but spent the rest of her life away from the North East. Her writing however continued to reflect her experience of the region, her first novel being The Witch of Redesdale (1951), which begins at Newcastle Central station, moves up Grey Street and Northumberland Street, then past the Town Moor and onto the Jedburgh Road and Catcleugh reservoir. On the way, the Border ballads are related to the hills and heather by the romantic Gill. Nowadays it might seem a surprise for four teenagers to be holidaying together without their parents being at all concerned, but the repartee of boy-girl friendship without sexual overtones is well conveyed by Finlay. Twenty more books followed, including Storm over Cheviot (1955), where the action begins in the Haymarket, Newcastle and ends in a remote house in the upper College Valley. There followed The Mystery in the Middle Marches (1964), again set in wild Northumberland, and Castle for Four (1966), set on the Northumberland coast. Danger at Black Dyke (1968) won the Junior Edgar Allen Poe Award. Later in life, Winifred was involved in compilations of folk tales and legends, including those of the North Country.
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