An evening with ... Cathy Hollowell (Couzens)

Born and bred in Crickhowell, former journalist and author, Cathy Hollowell, is coming to Bookish on her birthday, June 25th, to sign, sell and talk about her book “Nana, were you famous?”, a lively look at life in Fleet Street, the celebrities, adventures and tales behind the stories . Cathy is better known as Cathy Couzens locally, since Couzens the Chemist operated here as a family business from 1932-2000. She grew up here and still calls it home despite living in Houston, Texas , for 45 years. The book is a fun look behind the scenes at the life of the rich and famous, the life of a newspaper reporter, royalty on tour, film festival shenanigans and how she met her husband on an airplane and married him in two weeks….yes they are still married 45 years later. Why did she write a book? Because she was nagged by relatives and friends for years and thought she better get it done “before I drop off the perch”. Why is it called “Nana, were you famous?”…. Because her grandson Will was staring at a large poster on the wall, one of fifty which once graced the escalator wall on the Jubilee Line, and asked the question. Cathy says “It may be a while before he reads about his Nana’s adventures, some of them are a little risqué, and no I wasn’t famous, just really well known with more than two million readers daily” As Mohammad Ali said in her tv commercial. “When Cathy Couzens has a hunch, watch it man she don’t pull no punch”.