Helen was born in South Africa and educated in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). She married a South African and they moved back to Zimbabwe in 1967 where she became ill and was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. She and her family went through the Rhodesian civil war, and her husband died in 1977 when she moved back to Cape Town, South Africa with her children.

She is now involved in community work in Muizenberg, Cape Town and writes and paints in her spare time.