H is for Hawk author on move to namesake village

An author and bird-lover said she "definitely did not" move to a Suffolk village because it shared a similar name to her best-selling memoir, which has just been turned into a star-studded movie.

Helen MacDonald published H is for Hawk in 2014 which tells the story of the year she spent training a Eurasian goshawk after her father's death.

The tale was recently made into a Bafta-nominated movie, with the 55-year-old being played by Claire Foy, and Brendan Gleeson portraying her father Alisdair Macdonald.

Speaking to the BBC, she proclaimed her love for the county but said it would have been "absolutely appalling" if she had only moved to Hawkedon because of its name.

"Can you imagine if I'd said, 'I must live in this village so I can boost my brand'? That would have been so embarrassing and awful, wouldn't it?," said the author, who moved from the Newmarket area.

"I found this house on the internet and it was a bit like falling in love – and then I found out where it was and I was just like, 'Oh, I don't believe it.'

"But it is full of really great people and there are loads of hawks in the village, which is cool – I've loved Suffolk for years and moving here has a been a dream. I adore it."

MacDonald's book was largely set in Cambridge, and she had gone spotting for goshawks in The Brecks area on the Norfolk-Suffolk border. She then acquired one to train from a breeder.

MacDonald, who used to go to Southwold every year on holiday, decided to adopt and train a hawk as a way of coming to terms with the loss of her dad.

The photographer, who worked with the Daily Mirror for 26 years and also took photos of The Beatles before and after their break-up, died suddenly in 2007.

"We were really close and I decided to deal with my grief by training a goshawk, which I don't recommend to anyone," she said.

"It's an incredibly stupid thing to do and with this hawk I kind of lost sight of what it's like to be a real person and disappeared from everyone's lives."

The film, which went on general release in UK cinemas on 23 January, has received positive reviews from critics.

MacDonald said seeing herself and her personal story portrayed on screen was "very, very weird, but also very, very beautiful".

"When I found out they wanted to make a movie, I was really chilled about it and didn't feel that I was exposing myself any more than I did in the book," she said.

"But having said that, when I watched the film, there were a few moments that really got me.

"In the film, it's really clear how much I and my mum were desperately grieving and desperately wanted comfort, but we were both kind of getting a bit lost.

"At the time, I never really realised I was doing that. But in the film, it's really clear. And that was a real pain. I bawled and cried my eyes out when I first watched it."

Foy is famed for portraying a young Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown series on Netflix and the Duchess of Argyll in the BBC drama A Very British Scandal.

"We had a Zoom call and I kept thinking she was exactly like me and it took me quite a while to realise that she was acting, it was completely bizarre," MacDonald said.

"I went to see her on set and it completely freaked me out because she looked just like me. I've got this slight limp but she even walked like me.

"I'm just so spoilt to have her play me. It's an absolute dream come true."

Nearly two decades on from her father's death, Helen said she had learned to live with and manage her grief, but she "still feels it" and misses him.

"Some people say you get over grief but you don't — you just become a slightly different person and one that can hold that grief within you," she said.

"I feel that this film has reiterated the fact that the world is full of good people — and my dad was one of them, which is just lovely."

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