My 'Happy Place', Martha Hillier (1994, English)

I spent the Covid-19 pandemic writing and producing the Netflix show The Last Kingdom and its follow-up movie Seven Kings Must Die – both of which tell the story of the foundation of England via the exploits of a hero, Uhtred, and his warriors.

The creation of both pieces took me back to my bright orange copy of Professor Richard Hamer’s (1963) Anglo Saxon Verse which I’d had since I went up to Christ Church in 1994. I’d had the privilege of being taught by him (as Student of English) during my first year and as I stood, masked up, in a field near Budapest watching a fictional King Aethelstan tear down Pagan monuments outside a fictional York, I took out his translations and shared with some of the actors The Wanderer. A poem which (as all English students will instantly remember) includes the immortal line Wyrd bið ful āræd - the source of the show’s most famous catch phrase ‘Destiny is all’.

Re-reading Professor Hamer’s Battle of Brunanburh as we prepped an epic shoot to capture it was extremely special - and I intended to write to him at the end of filming. I found out he’d sadly passed away a month or so before and kicked myself for not reaching out sooner. I’d last spoken to him when he called my family home with finals results and I remember vividly him uttering the classic phrase ‘Oh dear, I think you’ve got the worst mark anyone could get … probably the highest 2:1 in the university’!

Unbeknownst to him, this was a turning point: I decided to abandon any inkling towards academia and follow my passion for drama. I’d been Secretary of OUDS and co-directed a really rather terrible Oxford Revue but needed some kind of formal training. So, I went to study for a masters in Text & Performance which at the time was taught between RADA and KCL. I spent a summer as an Assistant Director at The Globe during its second season and from there I was taken on as a trainee producer at the BBC. There, I worked on everything from Political Documentaries, to Light Entertainment, to Radio Four and the nascent online services. But drama was my destiny, and I made my way up through the training ground of East Enders to become a producer. It was a gruelling and hilarious experience and highlights included dropping a skip on Ross Kemp and having our canteen infiltrated by the News of the World. But although I loved producing, I really wanted to write. I kept putting it off and avoiding it because, like many people, I feared failure. Concepts around failure and resilience- building were entirely alien during my school and university years. This was the era of ‘failure is not an option’. So, I delayed and tinkered around the edges.

It was only when I got to 31 that I decided I had to risk it and fortunately, the risk paid off. I became a staff writer on Holby City which was fantastic during the years my children were small and allowed me to write for the incredible Hugh Quarshie (1972, PPE). I then moved on to become a lead writer on the ITV detective show Vera and various other credits subsequently followed. The Last Kingdom was not an obvious next step, but I was I was overjoyed when I got the job, not least because shows with swords and fighting were almost exclusively written by men. It turned out to be one of the most enjoyable experiences of my professional life.

Since completing ‘TLK’ I’ve been working on another historical epic; working with the Monegasque Princely Family to create a show around the exploits of the thirteenth century Grimaldi who have an unexpected origin-story as Genoese pirates. I’ve adapted a new version of Robert Harris’ Fatherland shooting later this year and am prepping an episode of Criminal Record for Apple TV. Earlier this year, I found myself momentarily in the mix for another project strangely linked to Christ Church – the reboot for TV of Harry Potter. I worked like a Trojan to try and get the gig … it was connected to my ‘Happy Place’ in Oxford, so surely it was meant to be? The job went to someone else. I included this recent set back in the ‘story of my career’ because If I had one piece of life advice to pass on via Christ Church Matters, to younger folks, it’s the recognition that you can work hard, have talent and still not always win. So, expect plenty of setbacks, especially if you want to pursue a freelance creative career – but be resilient. Failure is part of it, joy is part of it. Fate is inexorable.

Read the latest Christ Church Matters 52 here.