About

I was born in 1950, a single child. My family lived in a village in Buckinghamshire near the Chiltern Hills which offered an easy route to beech woodlands, wild flowers - especially harebells and foxgloves - fields of cowslips, small streams and chalky pathways scattered with grey flint.

My delight in the countryside and the seasons is matched only by the places where land and water meet especially at the tide-line with its debris, wildlife, breath, sand and mud markings or worn down stones and glass. The love of being near this particular edge has taken me further North especially to the Shetland Isles where I made numerous visits and nearer at hand, along the North East coast of Scotland.

Contact with learning disability has allowed me to meet individuals whose identity shines through their daily struggle: be they baking, sweeping, removing dead flowers, glass engraving, bringing home the cows or acting. These meetings have been and are part of my daily life in an intentional community.

An opening to the ideas of the philosopher Rudolf Steiner came on two fronts: attempting to understand the differences between each one of us, some of whom have a disability, and also artistic work. I studied eurythmy, a form of dance which conveys music and the spoken word down to the finest details through movement and choreography. For over ten years I wrote poems for a eurythmy training that expressed various rhythms, sound sequences and seasonal images. I also taught blocks of creative writing.

I have a particular interest in the simplicity and resonance of Chinese and Japanese poetry, perhaps not so surprising considering that I am intrigued by the interplay of the lives of characters set against natural or other specific details.

Hilary holds a BA in English Studies from the University of Nottingham (1973) and an MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Aberdeen (2012). She achieved a Diploma in Eurythmy (1980) and a Diploma in Person Centered Counselling (2000). For several years she worked as a social pedagogy tutor in the Department of Education at the University of Aberdeen while living in an intentional community for learning disabled adults.