Kate Allen, Queen’s University Belfast Student Counsellor, c. 1978-1988 

Kate Mary Hawcroft was born on 23 February 1937 in Guisborough, North Yorkshire. Her parents were pharmacist Tom Hawcroft and music teacher Margaret Hawcroft (née French); she was the eldest of three, followed by her sister Shelagh and their much loved brother John who died in his twenties.

Kate obtained a BA in English from the University of Leeds, marrying fellow student, Michael Allen, in 1959. Their daughter Catherine was born in Leeds in 1960. In 1961 they moved to Birmingham, where Michael enrolled for a PhD in English and son Matthew was born. Kate taught in a primary school until the family moved to the United States for the academic year 1963-4 for Michael’s research at Yale University.   

In 1964 Kate Allen and her family settled in Belfast, where Michael had been appointed lecturer in the Department of English at Queen’s. They spent 1967-8 in Northampton, Massachusetts, during Michael’s sabbatical at Smith College, where Kate obtained a diploma in social work. On returning to Belfast, she completed her social work training at Queen’s. From the early 1970s she worked as a social worker in west Belfast where, despite an English accent, she was accepted in a place of great deprivation and unrest. Kate managed her very challenging role with compassion and professionalism, working with her clients to mitigate the impact of the intense pressures and extraordinary circumstances under which they lived. 

In c. 1978 Kate Allen became Queen’s Student Counsellor, a role for which her training and personality were exceptionally well suited. Empathetic and practical, she helped students understand their dilemmas and themselves, working towards decisions or next steps to resolve the immediate problem and to lay the groundwork for the future. In c. 1988 she decided to return to Guisborough to live near her mother. Kate was appointed Student Counsellor at Teeside University in Middlesborough where she worked until retirement. She and Michael had divorced amicably. Michael, who died in 2011, found great joy in his marriage to Maureen Alden, Queen’s lecturer in Greek. In Guisborough Kate met John Brelstaff, a friend from teenage days, who became her beloved partner. Along with their many joint activities, John’s gardening enriched their lives.

Warm, funny, sociable Kate made many lifelong friends. During the Belfast years she and Michael lived in Stranmillis, close to Edna and Michael Longley. The two couples became inseparable companions. There was never any doubt about Kate’s loyalty or attachment: she returned to Belfast regularly, most recently in late 2023 to see friends all over Ireland.

Kate confronted her life in the world—personal, communal, global—with honesty, responsibility and courage. She found in the Society of Friends a still place of peace and inquiry, an openness to ‘that of God in everyone’. Practising Buddhist meditation and mindfulness, she focused on cultivating small seeds of hopefulness, staying with the present and accepting its fleetingness as best she could. Much beloved, she died after a short illness on 19 November 2024.