AR: What is the major difficulty with the work that you do in the Trust?

KH: Not enough hours in the day, days in the week, etc. As a team working in a small community we are very visible, and expectations of us are high. No matter how well you perform you are only ever as good as your last gig, so we feel a pressure to constantly do more, do better, do bigger, and it can take its toll if you're not careful.
 

AR: Where do you intend to take your ideas and job in the future?

KH: Well at nearly forty eight I think I may have stepped off the career ladder now, so I don't see my job going anywhere else (unless it goes for good in the next round of public spending cuts) and I'm not interested in leaving Shetland and going to work on the mainland. This my home, and my community, and I would like to carry on enabling exciting, enjoyable, stimulating things to happen for them and with them for as long as I can do it well.

AR: What is your special interest in arts terms - music, visual arts .... ?

KH: The whole banana! I love literature, visual arts, crafts, drama, dance, music, film - what a privilege to be able to be involved in the whole range of activities like this, and get paid for it too.
 

AR: I know about your penchant for Bryn Terfel - who are your other favourite performers/heroes?

KH: Bryn, Bryn, and Bryn again. And George Clooney. And Al Pacino. And .... oops, getting carried away here. I love all the films by the Coen Brothers and I love everything that Aardman Animation do. Favourite Scottish animation artist is the wonderful Jessica Langford. Favourite 20th century novels are The Great Gatsby and Pat Barker's hugely moving Regeneration, but I read Kinky Friedman for fun. Saw Bill Viola's amazing video installation Five Angels for the Millennium at the Tate Modern last year, and I now want to see everything else he's done. Favourite local hero is Shetland pianist Neil Georgeson, currently at the Royal Academy in London - watch out for him, world, because he's going to be very special indeed. Love to see the Royal Shakespeare Company doing anything at all, but would unreservedly recommend the National Theatre's touring and education group - their workshops are a 100% treat. Have a weakness for ceramics artists, particularly Blandine Anderson and Jenni Hale, both from Devon, and I love Nick Hubbard's wonderful, whimsical jewellery. Too many favourite poets to pick one, but I find the poems of Shetland's own Robert Alan Jamieson particularly moving. And then there is the best fun you can have without laughing? Dance workshops with Andy Howitt from Scottish Youth Dance – you’re too out of breath to laugh! There are loads more, but I don't want to bore you.
 

AR: I know you read a lot and have a wide ranging interest in books. What do you think of the Big Read list for the BBC?

KH: I have very mixed feelings about this, and all the other "Hundred Best Whatever" lists that are so prevalent in the media at the moment. If The Big Read gets people reading and interested in books, that's fine, but I don't look to lists or celebrities to inform my reading choices. My friends and my colleagues at work (particularly our incredibly well-read Literature Development guru, Alex Cluness) have a bigger influence on what I read, because I respect their judgment.