Angela Bull, in 20th Century Children’s Writers has called A Dream of Sadler’s Wells “a wish fulfilment story about Veronica Watson, a child dancer, recently orphaned, who is sent to live with some rich, snobbish relations in Northumberland.
Although inspired by her own daughter’s desire to become a dance student, the new series featured an orphan who secretly practices so she can audition for the ballet school. began publishing her Sadler’s Wells books, written after Vicki had decided to become a dancer following a family visit to see Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal. However, only two further novels were published before Art & Educational ceased trading. The company asked to see more, and Hill-who had by now taught herself to type, albeit only with two fingers-sent them a number of other manuscripts which were all accepted. The first, written in longhand in an old 1/9d stiff-backed notebook, was sold to the Glasgow firm of Art & Educational Publishers who published it in August 1948, replacing Hill’s watercolour illustrations with artwork by Gilbert Dunlop. Over the next few years, Hill continued to write for her daughter’s birthdays and Christmas without thinking of publication.Ī visitor to the family also happened to be a publishers’ reader and he recommended she sent her books to an agent.
which delighted both Vicki and her school friends when it was given to her as a Christmas present. With money scarce due to the war, Hill sat in front of her kitchen fire and wrote Marjorie & Co. These old exercise books were discovered by Hill’s 10-year-old daughter many years later and, after reading one, the young girl wished that there were more. ‘Looney’ Lorna (a nickname she earned because of her strange atire, chosen by her poetic mother) had begun writing and illustrating her own stories at around the age of 12-often at school when she should have been studying math or Latin-using them to barter with her school friends for toffee apples. In 1932, the family moved to Matfen, Northumberland, and Hill settled down to the life of a country vicar’s wife. They married in Newcastle in 1928 and had one daughter, Shirley Victorine (known as Vicki). She obtained her BA in English Literature in 1926 at the University of Durham where she also met her future husband, a clergyman, V. Leatham and his wife Edith (nee Rutter), and educated at Durham High School for Girls, before finishing at Le Manoir in Lausanne on the shores of Lake Geneva. Born in Durham on February 21, 1902, the daughter of G.
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