Pamela Gillilan (1918-2001) was an English poet.[1]
Pamela Gillilan was born on 24 November 1918 in Finchley in North London. Her parents were teachers. After school, she joined the civil service, and as a young woman, wrote some poetry and fiction. During the Second World War, she was a meteorologist with the Women's Auxiliary Air Force for RAF Bomber Command in Yorkshire. In 1948, she married David Gillilan. The couple moved to Cornwall, buying and restoring Kilmar House, a derelict Grade II listed house in Liskeard, in 1956. They ran an interior design and furniture restoration business there for many years.[1]
David Gillilan died in 1974.[1] Having written nothing for twenty-five years, Pamela Gillilan now returned to writing poetry.[2] In 1979, her poem "Come Away", an elegy on the death of her husband, won the Cheltenham Festival poetry competition. She was a Poetry Society prize-winner in 1980 and 1981. That Winter (1986), collecting elegies to her husband,[3] was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Poetry Prize.[1]
She moved to Bristol,[2] and taught creative writing at Bristol University and the University of the Third Age. She died on 26 October 2001.[1]