Judith Cook was born in Manchester, but lived and worked in Cornwall for more than forty years. She began her career as a journalist for the Guardian, specialising in investigative journalism, before continuing work as a freelance writer. In addition to winning a major award for her exposure of pesticide scandals, she attracted the attention of MI5 with her revelations regarding the murder of Hilda Murrell, the anti-nuclear campaigner. Her campaigning work remained a part of her writing, and more recently “The Year of the Pyres” charted the disastrous effects on the farming community of the 2001 foot and mouth disease outbreak.
Despite her nationally-acclaimed status as a writer, Judith was heavily involved in writing for amateur theatre productions. She was widely published in a wide variety of genres. Her work includes crime fiction, biography, theatre and journalism. Among her creations are Simon Forman, an Elizabethan doctor and John Latymer, a former Chief Inspector. Judith was also a part-time lecturer in Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre at Exeter University. One of her novels, “To Brave Every Danger”, the story of highwaywoman Mary Bryant, is being made into a film by MGM.
Judith died suddenly after suffering a stroke in 2004. She was 70 years old and had just married her partner of twenty-seven years, Martin Green. She had lived in the Newlyn for many years.