Another Guest Columnist

Ok, this is the kind of feature about me I really like, ironically also shown to me for the first time today. It's by Alyssa Harrison, an English journalism student I've been mentoring. Alyssa is studying at Staffordshire University, so will probably turn out to be a much better journalist than I am, but it's been fun giving tips to someone just starting out. She's written this as part of her course work. Feel free to comment to let her know what you think.

AS I pick up the phone and dial the number, I cannot help but feel a little nervous. Even though I have spoken to her prior to today, Hilary Decent, 25*, is not your typical interviewee. You see, Hilary is usually on the other side of the pen. (*ok, I admit it, Alyssa used my real age, but I like this one much better).
Throughout her career as a freelance writer, she has worked on numerous publications writing humour columns, straight news and even the occasional foray into script writing for amateur dramatics. However her biggest move came two years ago, when she and her husband Ross chose to take the ultimate step and leave their life in England behind. For a brand new one in the United States. When the phone is answered, Hilary’s friendly voice greets me and I am immediately at ease.
The opportunity for Hilary and her husband to move to the US first arose when her two children Robin, 25 and Abi, 21 had only just started school. Ross was working for an American company who offered him the chance to live and work in Chicago, Illinois. Yet because of the children’s age and the objections of family, the couple decided that it just wasn’t the right time. In spite of this though, the idea of moving to America never quite went away, and years later Hilary is living her dream. I suppose you could say that her eagerness to move away and start anew had something to do with the fact that she had previously stayed in one place for so long!
Growing up in Wembley, North London as she puts it “in the shadow of the football stadium” definitely seems to have left Hilary with a need to explore. For someone with so much drive and determination, it makes all too much sense that she felt the urge to escape her life in England and travel. “Although I moved around a very, very tiny amount , when I actually left England to move here I was still living around the corner from the house where I grew up, so I’d spent 50 years in the same place.”
“We could’ve just moved to another part of England I suppose, but I don’t like to do things by halves!”
At five years old Hilary already had dreams of being an author. Having always excelled in English at school, she knew she wanted to write. However despite her initial aspirations, Hilary had a change of heart by the time she left college instead choosing to study an NCTJ Journalism course for a year at Harlow Technical College. “When I realized just how difficult it would be to write a book and get it published, it seemed that to make a living out of it, journalism was a better route.” Then, at the age of 20 and on the back of her NCTJ course, she got her first job on a newspaper. Starting with the Hendon Times Newspaper, also in North London and then moving to a much smaller paper in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire where she worked for 7 years. A newspaper which was in the same group as the Hendon Times.
“I struggled enormously to get a job from there, I don’t know why particularly. I didn’t just want to move to a local paper.”
She married her husband Ross and, at the age of 26, had her first child. Her son Robin, followed three years later by the birth of her daughter, Abi. With her young family now depending on her Hilary took a considerable break from writing which even included teaching jobs. One as a special needs teaching assistant in a school for 10 years, the other at the University of Hertfordshire as an English teacher for foreign language students. Which, although it gave her an added feather in her cap, never quite quenched her thirst for creativity quite the same way writing did.
Lucky then that in 2006, her whole life changed, bringing with it a brand new set of opportunities. On their 25th wedding anniversary Hilary and her husband decided to go on a round the world trip, which brought back her yearning to move all over again.
“We were away for five weeks and it was wonderful. We got back home and we were living in the same little area of London where I was brought up and I said to my husband I can’t do this anymore. I have to get away. However difficult it was, we would make it happen because we had to do it.”
Do it they did. Within a year, Ross’ company had found him a position in Chicago and Hilary was delighted. She happily gushes about her decision: “I always felt somehow that we had to be here, and that there was some reason why we should be here.”
Since then Hilary has barely looked back. Her enthusiasm and sheer joy when talking about the States is obvious in her voice, which leaves me even more convinced that Chicago is where she belongs. The trick it would seem to success in her new life has been that she threw herself into the community, choosing to volunteer everywhere she could to make herself known.
“Before I knew it I was volunteering virtually everywhere around the town”, she says. “You need to hit the ground running really I think”.
That is exactly what she did. She started her online blog, which quickly gained a following and, eventually, landed herself a job as a weekly humour columnist for the Naperville Sun. Something which, undeniably had been helped by her self promotion and growing reputation.
Freelancing work has followed, and in an unusual move she went back to teaching in the form of a feature writing class at North Central College, which allowed her to pass her journalistic experience onto others, and helped her confidence to bloom once more. Surprising herself with just how much she knew.
As our interview comes to an end we chat briefly about Hilary’s next move in her Stateside life, which leaves me with the question, after so many years in one place, was it worth the wait? Will she settle in Naperville for good?
"I’ve already learnt in the past, if you let it go, it’s gone," she said. " It really is all or nothing now, so I’m trying to make the most of it.”