Minnie Agnes Filson was born on the goldfields at Wyalong. She was a fourth generation Australian of both convict and pioneer stock. Her family moved from the country to settle in the Mosman area in about 1913.
During the 1930s and 1940s, under the name Rickety Kate, Filson submitted poetry and prose to Isobel Grey, editor of Whose, a broadsheet, and host of a radio programme on Radio 2KY by the same name. Grey invited listeners to send in their contributions using a 'nom de radio' for anonymity, so that their views could be submitted freely without prejudice. Filson's pseudonym was the name of a popular card game; it was also a reference to her physical condition brought about by a virulent form of rheumatoid arthritis. Filson was completely immobilised by 1928 and remained in that condition until her death. In a letter to writer and critic, H M Green (q.v.), in 1942, Filson explained that her 'nome de radio' was 'a tilt at the rigidity and uselessness of my members'. Another writing name, Judith Grey, under which she wrote Feet on the Ground, was possibly a tribute to Isobel Grey. Filson and Grey became friends through their correspondence and Grey brought people, including writers, to meet Filson at her Cremorne home. Thus an arts circle formed and met on Sunday afternoons during the 1940s and 1950s. Visitors included Nancy Keesing, Marjorie Pizer, Reba Ginsberg, Ray Mathew and Richard Wilson (qq.v.) and Archibald Prize winner (1944) Joshua Smith. Filson engaged with the Jindyworobak movement, the Communist Party, the Rosicrucians, the Union of Australian Women and the theology of Lloyd Gerring.
Filson's work was composed in her mind, then dictated when a scribe was available. Eileen Davies (q.v.) was her best friend and chief scribe. Davies ensured that much of Filson's work was recorded and sent to various publications. Davies was also a member of the Kooroora Club, a professional businesswomen's club founded in 1939, that provided Filson with a readership for her poetry and a roster of scribes. Filson's sister Allie Oliver was the first president of the Kooroora Club.
Filson's library included books with inscriptions from such well-known writers as Miles Franklin (q.v.), who described Filson - in an inscription to a book by Mary Fullerton (q.v.) - as 'an indomitable spirit'. Keesing wrote in Australian Book Review (June 1983) that Filson was 'one of the bravest people, or poets, I ever knew'. In Feet on the Ground Filson claimed that she had found a place beyond the material world where she experienced 'a sense of life and a knowledge of being'.
