Stories from our Elders: My passionate friendship with a rebel poet

Alison Hoddinot was one of the first Australian women to study at Oxford University, but one of her lecturers, J.R.R Tolkein, refused to take on a woman PhD student.
Alison was born in Tasmania in 1931.
As a young woman she won a scholarship to study at Oxford University.
But when she arrived, none of the male professors including J.R.R Tolkien, would take on a woman PhD student.
Back in Tasmania Alison became great friends with the poet Gwen Harwood.
The two shared recipes, letters, and the challenges of combining work and motherhood.
During their friendship Gwen shocked the nation when she used acrostic sonnets to pull a wild hoax on The Bulletin magazine in 1961.
First broadcast in 2018
Further information
In 2022 Alison Hoddinot passed away after a short illness
Women, Oxford and Novels of Crime and Gwen Harwood: Idle Talk - Letters 1960-1964 are published by Brandl and Schlesinger
Read more about Gwen and Alison's friendship and their letters