Real people, real lives

Despite the hard subjects she tackles, at the heart of all her endeavours lies a romantic passion for a country and a language that Helen finds totally beguiling.

As a historian, she says she is intrigued by “the incredible Russian capacity for enduring, for suffering. This came through to me very strongly while I was writing Ekaterinburg.”

Helen’s bestseller is the poignant story of the last two weeks in the lives of the Romanovs. Later this year, she will feature in a National Geographic documentary for Channel 5 about the murder of the Romanovs.

Her next book, Beautiful For Ever, is already much anticipated and has taken her back to the Victorian era. In it she reveals the career of Madame Rachel of New Bond Street — a notorious con artist and blackmailer. And no, it is not fiction. “Real people and real lives never cease to fascinate me,” she said.

Helen is not only a compelling writer but also a fine speaker and she will launch Beautiful For Ever at the Oxford Literary Festival on March 23 and, if you miss that, she will be talking about it again at the Kennington Free Literary Festival on April 24.

Would Russia, or her passion for the Victorian era, rule Helen’s choice of item she would most like to find washed up on the beach of our desert island?

“I must have a visual reminder of my roots. Growing up in Kent, my younger twin brothers and I were allowed to wander freely in the haunting landscape of the Medway marshes and along the sea wall to a place called Sharp’s Green. At every prospect, there was something to remind me of Dickens, my favourite author then and now.

“My brother Peter is a photographer and graphic artist, so one of his pictures of that evocative view would bring back memories of my childhood, of Victorian life and literature and of a world, now lost, but which was once safe for children to play in,” she said.

“My love of Russia and all things Russian springs from a rather corny but true first-love experience when I made my first serious book purchase as a teenager, using five shillings pocket money. It was The Penguin Classics’ edition of Chekhov’s short stories, which included the exquisite The Lady with the Little Dog. You could say that reading that story was a transformative experience. I still have that now very dog-eared copy. I treasure it and cannot imagine being without it.  “It is part of who I am, because my love of Russia began with Chekhov. I graduated to Doctor Zhivago, a wonderfully poetic and moving work of literature, but not an easy read aged 15! Thereafter, I read and consumed everything and anything I could find by Russians and about Russia.

“So when my head teacher at Chatham Grammar School for Girls asked if anyone in the fifth form was interested in studying Russian in the lower sixth, I was an eager volunteer. I just fell in love with the language. I shall be eternally grateful to Chatham Grammar School for Girls, for setting up a class of one, especially for me. I consider myself hugely lucky to be able to speak such a melodic and beautiful language.

“The wonderful liberal education I received provided me with opportunities that are vanishing from schools today,” Helen said.

“Russian Special Studies was an obvious choice at university. My love of Russian drama led me onto the stage in a student performance of Chekhov’s The Seagull. And unfortunately I was bitten by the bug. For the next 20 years I was diverted into a career as an actress.

“Fortunately, I always kept my Russian alive and built up a reputation as a literal translator in the theatre, which over the years brought the opportunity to translate all seven of Chekhov’s plays.”

In 2005, Helen was historical consultant on a Channel 4 documentary The Real Angel of the Crimea about the Jamaican nurse, Mary Seacole, whose portrait she had discovered.

“It first came to light ,when it was sold at a small auction at Shipston-on-Stour in 2002,” Helen said. “It was purchased by a local dealer in prints and paintings. He did not know who the subject was but, because she was wearing medals, he contacted a friend of a friend in the Order and Medals Research Society who in turn, knowing of my specialist interest in Mary Seacole, e-mailed me and asked if I could authenticate the sitter. He sent me a copy of the portrait and as soon as I saw it I knew it was Mary.”

Helen did not want the painting to disappear abroad or into a private collection, so she took a risk and decided to purchase it.

“After a long and nail-biting period of six months, I finally got the dealer in Shipston to agree to sell the painting to me, but had to borrow the money from the bank.

“Within a couple of weeks of acquiring the painting, I took it to the National Portrait Gallery for tests and authentication — they could tell me nothing about the artist, who was unknown to them, but they did confirm from pigment tests etc that the portrait was indeed painted in 1869 and ,therefore, contemporaneous and not posthumous. “I never brought the painting back home - it remained on loan to the National Portrait Gallery for the next three years until I sold it to them in January last year, ensuring it will remain in the national collection.”

The sale provided her with the financial security she needed to continue her career as a writer.

Helen said: “If I could take the portrait to the desert island, it would remind me of Mary Seacole’s humanity, compassion and indomitable spirit.

“I will need some inspiration alone on the island. And here was a woman who crossed all the classic divides of her time — race, gender and social class and never ever let anyone put her down. I love the way she bucked the system and did it her own way. I admire feisty women. There is one in my own family whom I would also like to celebrate.’ Helen showed me a photograph of her Aunt Lily in an early aeroplane that looked as if it was made from paper and matchsticks!

“Aunt Lily was probably the first woman to fly, according to her obituary. This photograph was taken in Hendon in 1909 when she was just 18. Unfortunately, she did not apply to the RAEC club for her pilot’s license, so there is no official record.

“The first British woman, in the records, was Edith Maud Cook, in the Pyrenees in 1910. The first two American women to fly also did so that year, but my aunt was clearly flying before this date. Either way, Lily Irvine was certainly the youngest of the first women to fly.  “She married the American aviator James Martin who taught her to fly at Hendon. Her 1959 obituary read: ‘To the horror of her mother, grease-smeared Lily spent her youth wandering about Hendon aerodrome in overalls, learning the intricacies of aircraft construction.’  “Her husband James was an aircraft designer and Lily later flew his flying boats in Canada and the USA The obituary says that she even gave ‘stunt exhibitions,” Helen added.

It seemed to me that Helen’s literary interests are fired by feisty women and cruel men. After Stalin and Lenin, I wondered about her latest protagonist, Madame Rachel.

Helen said: “If I was not a historian, I think I would have made a good detective. I am passionate about winkling out the truth and love the thrill of the chase. Madame Rachel’s is a compelling story — which is why I love writing history.

“Tracking her down has taken me almost entirely to untouched primary sources. Mind you her legend must have persisted into the 1940s, because Sir John Gielgud once considered staging a play about her. He thought Margaret Rutherford would be ideal for the role! That would have been terrible casting — Madame Rachel was far more sinister!

“I am looking forward to concentrating on the Victorians for a while. In 2011, I shall be bringing out Memorial, about the death of Prince Albert — a close-up look at the circumstances of his death and its impact on the monarchy and British society.

“As a passionate Victorianist I love the Pre-Raphaelites, the Arts and Crafts Movement, and the Gothic Revival. If I had to pick one example local to me here in Oxford, I think, it would be the wonderful Burne Jones windows in Christ Church Cathedral. They could even be rather practical when constructing a shelter, the most sophisticated hut imaginable.’”

Unfortunately, Helen can take only one of her items onto the desert island, so will it be the Burne Jones window, the nostalgic photographs, the portrait of Mary Seacole or the book?

“I have two collecting habits, Victorian and Russian books. It all began with that first collection of Chekhov’s incredibly observant and poignant stories about life’s little tragedies,” she said.

“But the Christ Church window features a real woman, Alice Liddell. Perhaps I could take the Victorian windows to light up the Russian book? But if it has to be one or the other, I suppose, it must be the book.’”

• The festival website is www.oxfordliteraryfestival.com and the box office telephone number is 0870 3431001.