Stephanie Gaunt – Hastings-based writer, poet and blogger.
After a varied career in human resources, counselling, running a training and consultancy company, running a vintage clothes shop and finally as a consultant working in social housing, Stephanie Gaunt ‘retired’ when she arrived in Hastings from Birmingham in 2011, but is now as busy as ever!
Stephanie, her husband Nick Dent and Digby, the food-obsessed rescue cat, live overlooking the sea in the Clive Vale area of the town.
She has a daughter, a grand-daughter and two grown-up step-children. All the children live a long way away – daughter and grand daughter living in Portugal, step-daughter in Bristol, and step-son in Santiago de Compostela.
By the way, for anyone who wonders why Philosopher is called that in the blog, it is because that is what he is/was – he is a Professor (Emeritus) of Philosophy. He worked at the University of Birmingham and has published several books on Rousseau.
Stephanie started her writing life young, with many unsuccessful attempts to write novels. Hopefully, she has now found her genre – cosy crime! On moving here she joined the Hastings Writers’ Group. In 2013 she was the group’s ‘Writer of the Year’, and in the same year helped the group win a national anthology award with her editing work on ‘Animal Writes’, a charity anthology.
Stephanie also writes poetry. In 2015 she won the national Women’s Institute Lady Denman Cup for a poem about the WI. The cup was presented to her by HM Queen Elizabeth II. In 2019 she published ‘Lines and Wrinkles’ a collection of her poems to mark a Big Birthday.
The Women’s Institute has been a big part of Stephanie’s life. She joined shortly after moving to Hastings as a way of meeting new people, and did a gruelling five years as President of the Hastings Ore Women’s Institute, and also five years as a Trustee of the East Sussex Federation of WIs, including editing the monthly East Sussex WI News. Although she doesn’t excel at, or enjoy, the traditional womanly arts of cooking and craft, she enjoys WI activities such as gardening, a book group, and walking.
She loves shopping, junk hunting, eating, reading, classical music, general hanging out with Nick/Philosopher, gardening, lying on the sofa watching telly, and going out and about. She collects all sorts of things, including1950s Italian pottery spaghetti poodles and cats, vintage Murano glass, 1950s lucite blocks with fishes inside, vintage clothes, handbags, shoes…
She also volunteers as an Animal Care Assistant at the RSPCA Mallydams Wildlife rehabilitation centre at Fairlight… Not a glamorous job!
What is Hastings Battleaxe?
Hastings Battleaxe, was ‘born’ in December 2011, when Stephanie moved from Birmingham to Hastings with Philosopher, her husband, to start a new life by the sea. Initially, it was meant for old friends and family in Birmingham, and also as a regular writing exercise, a sort of on-line diary, to get through the stressful moving in and settling-down period. However, it became a habit and is still going strong in 2025.
The posts are mostly about life in East Sussex, centred on Hastings. However, Battleaxe and Philosopher travel a good deal, both in the UK and abroad. Battleaxe is insatiably curious about far too many things – reading, poetry, collecting, local affairs, the state of the nation, clothes, art, food, nature, theatre, music… the content of the blog is, to say the least, eclectic.
 |
| Fishing boats on Hastings beach |
Hastings Battleaxe sets out to be honest, and that means the posts do include the expression of some strong opinions – well, she wouldn’t be a Battleaxe otherwise, would she? Although it intends to be light-hearted and a bit tongue-in-cheek, inevitably, sometimes the posts will rattle the bars of people’s cages! Battleaxe also promotes the particular strengths of older women like herself. Invisible? Her? No chance.
Apart from one or two spectacular ‘blips’ which we won’t dwell on (including one national media storm which made the blog a viral sensation – in every single daily paper!), the blog relies on a squad of loyal readers. Traffic has increased steadily month on month since the blog started.
As early as 2014, Hastings Battleaxe was included in the New Writing South ‘Good Blog Guide’.