She was born and raised in Alton, Hampshire, England, and became involved in the local folk club scene in the late 1960s.

She enjoys singing songs with meaningful words and has named her major influences as Bob Dylan, Al Stewart, Dave Evans, Leon Rosselson, Billy Bragg, Bruce Cockburn and Robb Johnson.

Alongside Holland and the other Tiger Moth members, line-ups have included such respected international musicians as Flaco Jimenez, Dembo Konte, Kausu Kuyateh, Hijaz Mustapha and Abdul Tee-Jay.

[3] Also in 1985 she was the female lead singer in the National Theatre's three-month run of Tony Harrison's Mysteries trilogy.

In 1987, Holland began to write her first songs, encouraged by Jon Moore, one of her colleagues from Tiger Moth, with whom she had made an EP.

[4] Credited jointly with Jon Moore, this is a sentimental journey back to her childhood in Alton, the nostalgia tinged with sadness at the changes wrought on small parts of all our lives by "progress".

The song which won Holland an award in the inaugural (2000) BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards was (in her own words)[5] inspired by Christopher Hill's book "The World Turned Upside Down", Leon Rosselson's song of the same name, Naomi Mitchison's "Sea-Green Ribbons", William Cobbett's "Cottage Economy", Hamish Henderson's "Freedom Come-All-Ye", Jean Giono's "The Man Who Planted Trees" and "animated discussions with (rightly) proud and passionate Scots like Dick Gaughan".

[citation needed] During 2010, Holland participated in a project featuring the music of Derroll Adams, arranged and directed by Wiet Van Der Liest.