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This article is about a non-fiction entity related to the Astronist belief system or the Astronic tradition.
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35 Church Terrace, Higher Walton

35 Church Terrace, Higher Walton. The home of Hilda Warbrick from 3 years old (in 1939) to 20 (in 1957).

Hilda Warbrick (née Cottam; August 29, 1937 – June 23, 2023), known in the Astronist religion under the title, Hilda, grandmother of Cometan, was an English shorthand typist, medical records officer and newsagent best remembered as the maternal grandmother of the philosopher Cometan. Hilda married William "Bill" Warbrick on 17th May 1958 and had her first daughter, Karen Warbrick, in 1966 and her second daughter, Louise Warbrick, in July 1970. Hilda passed away on 23rd June 2023 at her home Brooklands on Quaker Brook Lane in the village of Hoghton. Her grandson Cometan was beside her in her final moments as was her husband Bill.

Hilda Warbrick was born in late summer of 1937 to a poor family in the village of Higher Walton. Her mother died when Hilda was just four years old which she later accredited to her strength in character and tactful practicality having not had a mother to depend on. Her father passed away when she was twenty years old and from then on, she became even closer to her grandmother who had long outlived her own daughter.

Hilda grew up amongst her two brothers, Raymond and Kevin, during the years of the Second World War. She would later recount to her grandson, Cometan, about the time when the German air raids were in full force. She and her family had gone down to their basement for shelter and looking up through the grid onto the street above, she saw a bomb flying passed All Saints Church.

Due to her role as a coportant figure in Astronism, Cometan granted his grandmother the mononymous title Macosmera.

Daughters

Karen Warbrick

Karen Elizabeth Warbrick (born September 17, 1966 - October 7, 1970) was the aunt of Cometan, the daughter to Bill and Hilda Warbrick and the sister of Louise Counsell. Karen died at the age of four due to an accidental death of drowning after falling into a pond near to the house of her parents.

Timeline of life

  • August 29, 1937: Hilda Warbrick is born Hilda Cottam in the village of Higher Walton on Darwin Street.
  • 1952: Hilda reports seeing a ghost while on her way home on a winter's night.

Witness of ghost

Main article: Ghost of Billy Brierley

Hilda Warbrick reported seeing on a night in early December 1952, the ghost of a teenage boy from the village of Higher Walton appear after he died just a year before. Just fifteen herself at the time, Hilda saw the apparition when she was walking home along Hoghton Lane after having just finished a session of dressmaking at her friend Lorna Heath's home on Rosewood Avenue.

In early January 2024, Hilda's grandson Cometan commissioned a British artist named David Young who had produced many illustrations for the Astronist Institution's various activities including book covers for The Original Jesse Millette Series. Cometan asked David Young to illustrate the moment his grandmother Hilda saw the ghost of the teenage boy named Billy Brierley.

The Ghost of Billy Brierley (2024)

The Ghost of Billy Brierley (2024) by David Young.

On 7th March 2024, the finished illustration was released along with the following official description of the event:

On a wintery night in December 1952, a teenage girl named Hilda Cottam was walking home along a country road near the village of Higher Walton in Lancashire after visiting her friend with whom she had been dressmaking. As Hilda strolled along the snow-sprinkled pavement with not another soul in sight, her stomach dropped as she saw in the distance a figure suddenly appear around the bend in the road. Hilda realised this was no ordinary person for they were running in the middle of the lane along the cat’s eyes. The silhouette kept running towards her and as it got closer, Hilda’s heart beat faster and faster as the figure’s strange appearance became clear. She noticed that the figure was a boy smaller in height than herself which abated her worries somewhat but she could not make out the boy’s face for he was wearing a helmet with a grille. Then, as the boy kept running towards her, she noticed he was wearing knee socks, schoolboy shorts and a white shirt and jumper as if he had just finished a game of cricket. Just as the boy approached where Hilda was walking, to settle her nerves, she called to him “goodnight” but the boy said nothing and kept running in the road. The second he passed Hilda she turned around in fear that he might attack her from behind but when she turned, all she saw were snowflakes whirling in the wind on the empty road. The boy had vanished. Hilda later realised that what she had seen that night was an apparition of William “Billy” Brierley who had died when he was fourteen exactly a year earlier and had lived at a house on Hoghton Lane nearby to where he had appeared to Hilda.

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