The Simple Soul and Other Stories (Large print ed)

Set in the North-East, the South, and London, the timescale of these stories stretches from the 1920s to the present day.

In the title story a disillusioned husband decides to call on an office colleague he has always slightly despised, and finds himself having to re-evaluate his own family relationships in the light of what he discovers in the other's home.

In the three stories that make up The Forbidden Word, Catherine Cookson traces the changes in attitudes to marriage and pregnancy that have taken place in the last eighty years.

In other stories, a shy bachelor begins to make friends for the first time in his life when he takes refuge from the Blitz in the London Underground; a much put-upon young woman makes up her mind to escape from her family's domestic exploitation of her; and a husband's passion for cricket causes havoc.