Blackthorn Winter

A Story of Murder and Renewal

March 1984. In a Shropshire copse, the body of an elderly woman is found. She is a rose grower and an environmental campaigner, a solitary figure who lived by her own convictions. Her name is Hilda Murrell.

Hilda’s murder sparks national outrage – and suspicion. When the initial police investigation fails to uncover her killer, theories begin to circulate that she has been silenced by Thatcher’s government for her anti-nuclear campaigning. More than forty years on, questions remain.

Chloe Davies was five years old when her Great Aunt Hilda died and has always been drawn to the mysteries surrounding her life and death. Now, she returns to the landscape of her childhood to search for Hilda: in the memories of those who knew her, in the woods and hills she walked, in her writing and sketches, and in police files that do not quite add up.

As Chloe attempts to piece together what happened to Hilda, she finds herself turning increasingly to her remarkable life. Here is a woman who rescued both refugees and endangered roses, challenged political complacency, and lived with a rare clarity of purpose. As the search deepens, it draws Chloe into a reckoning with what has shaped her own life, and the question of how far she is willing to go to understand what happened to Hilda.

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