Alan Stoker EsqIrene Carr was born and brought up on the river in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, in the 1930s. As her father and brother worked in the local shipyards and her mother was a barmaid at the beginning of the century she was well acquainted with the settingand times of the world she recreated in her sagas. Irene Carr died in 2006. Read More Read Less