Gillian Shimwell

Gillian Shimwell grew up in Wharfedale and trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Her involvement with community drama and Folk History began in the 1980s when, living in Heage, Derbyshire, she wrote and directed a play with music based on a historic local murder.

She was a founder member of the Bakewell based Writers in the Peak, contributing to two collections, "Peak Voices" and "Peak Echoes".

In 2017, Haddon Hall, the setting for several films of "Jane Eyre", presented an imaginative and intimate promenade production of the novel with a cast of four professional actors, commissioned by Lord and Lady Manners and written and directed by Gillian, who also provided Bertha Rochester's disturbing "noises off".

Gillian has been a storyteller since 2010, mostly with the Matlock Storytelling Cafe.

She is a member of the Wirksworth Poets’ group Wordminers, and was a writer and performer in a piece based on local history "PittyWood".