Kim Hastings obituary

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/25/kim-hastings-obituary

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My mother, Kim Hastings, who has died aged 62, was an art therapist and psychotherapist, and one of the founding members of the Bath Counselling and Psychotherapy Asylum Project (BCPC), which worked with asylum seekers and refugees who have experienced various types of trauma, including torture.

Kim was born in Nottingham to Joan (nee Wachter) and Derek Corbet. Her father was in the RAF, so the family moved around a fair bit. In 1965, when Kim was 12, they emigrated to Benoni, near Johannesburg in South Africa. This proved to be a formative time for Kim; as she moved into her teenage years she became politically aware, and involved in anti-apartheid and feminist campaigns.

She left home at 17 to work in a school for blind children in Isfahan in Iran, before eventually returning to England. In 1973 she met Jon Hastings, a student at Manchester University who went on to train as a psychotherapist. They moved together to Cardiff, where I was born, and then to Peckham, south London, where they married in 1977 and had their second daughter, Abbie. Believing that London was no place to be poor with two kids, they eventually settled in a commune in Bristol.

Although Jon and Kim divorced in 1981 they continued to share the childcare equally, and in 1982 Kim embarked on a two-year course in humanistic psychology with the Institute for the Development of Human Potential. She further trained in art therapy and psychotherapy and became involved in BCPC, which is now the Trauma Foundation, South West.

Working with asylum seekers and refugees was Kim’s passion; after her health deteriorated in her 50s, it was the only aspect of her work she still undertook. She suffered from hearing loss from her mid-20s, which worsened over time. Her deafness brought many difficulties, but also gave a unique intimacy to her relationships and a particular insight in her professional life and work with refugees.

Kim was involved in the Greenham Common protests, CND, and Red Rope, a socialist walking group. At 50 she completed a master’s degree in creative writing, and enjoyed volunteering at the Amnesty International bookshop in Bristol. Despite ill health she flourished as a poet and a loving grandmother, also nurturing close relationships with her neighbours in her beloved home in Montpelier, Bristol. Throughout her life she was passionate about human rights, nature, the creative arts, and the beauty and appreciation of small things. She had fire in her belly until the end.

She is survived by Abbie and me, and by her grandchildren, Milly and Herbie.