Jesus Life 90 - Jesus Army

Penelope Wilcock is the author of
the much-loved series of Christian
books,The Hawk and the Dove.
She talks to James Stacey, editor
of Jesus Life
THANKS for giving us this opportunity
to talk to you, Penelope. Your books,
especially the Hawk and the Dove trilogy have
meant a great deal to many people.
Last week, I had an email from a friend’s
friend whose daughter has been depressed. For
some months she’d been going downhill. She’d
got to the point where she’d gone zombie-ish
and they were concerned to get her restarted
again, emotionally. They gave her the Hawk
and the Dove trilogy. The woman who wrote to
me said that her daughter’s “tears flowed for
Peregrine” and that it unlocked her. I was just
so pleased with that.
Your writing is full of insight into human
realities; it has a feel of empathy – for
instance, about dementia and death in The
Long Fall. Did that come out of personal
experience of losing somebody?
When I was researching The Long Fall, I took a
job as a night nurse in a run-down nursing home
in St Leonards. The hospice nearby, where I’d
worked as a voluntary Free Church chaplain, had
everything that money could buy to make people
there more comfortable. But in this little nursing
home where I was working, they had nothing.
I’ve never forgotten one occasion, sitting
with a lady who died that night. Her body
was disintegrating, all pressure sores, oozing
diarrhoea. She would scream because she had
so much pain. Sitting with her that night, there
was a toilet roll and a washing up bowl – that
was all there was to make her comfortable.
I remember thinking: this is what poverty is.
I wanted to imagine it would be like caring for
someone who was dying in the Middle Ages.
And in 20th century St Leonards – I saw it.
www.jesus.org.uk
I never write
about anything
that I haven’t lived
in some way
That’s not just the kind of “research” that
means looking at a computer screen!
No, I never write about anything that I
haven’t lived in some way.
Tell us about your own story.
Important parts of my own story will come
out in a book this summer – a rewrite of a
book I wrote a long time ago called “Spiritual
Care of Dying and Bereaved People”. In the
last 15 years of my life there have been some
significant losses and bereavements, things
that have changed and shaped me; they’ll be
in that book.
I grew up in Hertfordshire. When I was
about 15, I came across Saint Francis and
fell in love with his vision of simplicity –
“Lady Poverty”. To live in simplicity has been
something I’ve wanted all my life.
My first husband’s family was Methodist,
and I became part of the Methodist Church.
I became a Methodist “local preacher”, then
a minister for about 12 years. But then my
marriage came off its wheels, which was a
very painful time. At the same period as I
found myself on the outside of my husband’s
big family, my family of origin was also going
through a painful time. I married again – and
my husband died within 15 months of our
marriage, of cancer. I looked after him at
home. After that, I got married again – to Tony,
who I’m married to now. But things weren’t
easy with his family and we had a very difficult
start to our marriage.
Continued overleaf
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Jesus Life 19