Category: United Kingdom

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Rachel Denton, UK hermit

Rachel Denton, UK hermit

A BBC “Religion and Ethics” item updates the hermit life of Rachel Denton, first mentioned in this blog in a Guardian article from 2009. Rachel Denton lives in Lincolnshire, UK. “A teacher for 15 years, culminating in a deputy headship in Cambridgeshire, Rachel gave it all up 12 years ago for a life of contemplative silence as a Roman Catholic hermit.” She is a canonical hermit in the diocese of Nottingham. The article highlights her life and interests, including her use of social media.

She has three rules for her life as a hermit.

One is to live simply in solitude and silence, staying and returning there in so far as duties permit.

The second is to earn a sufficient living, trying to maintain that solitude and silence. And the third is to pray every day.

Much of her work and contact with family and friends can be carried out online.

While practical reasons take her out and about, normally at least once a week, she can also go for days without speaking and says solitude gives her energy and happiness.

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/24367826

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Welsh hermit Emma Orbach

A December 2012 Daily Mail (UK) article describes the hermit life of Emma Orbach. The title and bylines:

Meet Mrs Bilbo Baggins: Oxford graduate quits society to live a hobbit-style existence in a mud roundhouse in Welsh hills.

  • Emma Orbach, 58, has shunned society, living in a mudhut she built herself
  • The Oxford graduate named her home Tir Ysbrydol, which means ‘spirit land’ in Welsh, where she has banned technology
  • She fetches water from a stream and keeps three goats, seven chickens and two horses

Emma Orbach's hobbit house

More from the article:

Nestled in the mountains of West Wales, she named her home Tir Ysbrydol, which means ‘spirit land’ in Welsh.

When her children, who are in their 20s and 30s and live in London, Bristol and Brighton, visit, they, like all guests at the roundhouse, are banned from bringing technology such as phones or laptops with them.

It is all a far cry from the conventional trappings of Mrs Orbach’s background. Her father was a violinist and her mother a librarian.

After graduating from Oxford with a degree in Chinese, she married architectural historian Julian Orbach.

The article includes video and photos.

URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2254397/Oxford-graduate-quit-mainstream-society-live-hobbit-style-existence-mud-hut-Welsh-hills.html

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“The Hermit in the Garden”

A forthcoming 2013 book by Gordon Campbell is titled The Hermit in the Garden, published by Oxford University Press. The author talks about the book in a YouTube posted by the press, described as “the cultural decline of the hermit”:

Author Gordon Campbell talks about the imaginary hermits of the eighteenth century, discussing the subsequent cultural void left with the disappearance of the great English houses and the rise of decorative garden gnomes.

URL: http://youtu.be/5E0SWQs1kQY

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Sara Maitland interviewed

Sara Maitland, author of A Book of Silence (2008), is interviewed by Telegraph (UK) correspondent Peter Stanford. Maitland lives in a shepherd’s cottage (shieling) in Galloway, Scotland, where she continues to write, her latest project being Gossip from the Forest, a reexamination of forests in fairy tales of Grimm and others.

Writes Stanford of Maitland’s solitude:

The things she misses in her shieling, she says, are simpler and very specific. “The first is physical contact in moments of stress, not the big ones, but when I come in from a walk and it has been raining and I am soaked and I have a deep desire for someone to be there to say, ‘God, you’re wet.’ And the second is when someone has annoyed me, usually by email, I have no one there to let off steam with, and so frequently I find myself telling the person I am angry with my reply. I need someone to puncture my rage bubble.”

The other thing she finds herself hankering after, she says, is the sort of catch-all conversation we are having. “I’m a profoundly frivolous person and I grew up with smarty-pants dinner conversations. If I am ever asked to be in Who’s Who, I will put as my hobby deipnosophy, banter-like exchanges round a dinner table.” Couldn’t she just break silence once a month and invite local friends over for a good set-to over supper? “You don’t understand,” she protests, a look of mock horror on her face, “there is hardly a soul within spitting distance of where I live.” Their loss is my gain.

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Three modern hermits profiled

In “Life Lessons from Modern Day Hermits,” a Telegraph article by Adam Lusher, the writer discusses his encounters three contemporary hermits:

  • Shropshire hermit, Stafford Whiteaker, editor of The Good Retreat Guide, who lives as a solitary religious in a tiny cottage;
  • an unnamed New York City woman whose reclusion includes delivered groceries and anonymous advice; and
  • Sara Maitland, author of A Book of Silence and the forthcoming Gossip from the Forest: a Search for the Hidden Roots of our Fairytales, who lives without internet, radio, or television in a cottage.

URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/wellbeing/9539104/Life-lessons-from-modern-day-hermits.html