Helen was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children.She studied English at the University of York, and after graduating taught English as a foreign language in Finland. At around this time she began to write the poems which formed her first poetry collection, The Apple Fall. During the 1980s and early 1990s she taught poetry and creative writing, tutored writing courses and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome.
Helen also taught undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education courses at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.
