Lorna Hill was born in 1902, in Durham City, England. She was educated at Durham Hill School for girls and Le Manoir on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. This was a finishing school at Lausanne. Lorna obtained her BA at Durham University, which is where she met her future husband, a clergyman. They were married at Newcastle Cathedral and four years later he was posted to a remote vicarage at Matfen, in Northumberland. They now had a daughter, Vicki, and Lorna played the organ on Sundays, ran the Sunday School and carried out the many duties expected of a country vicar's wife.