Accession - UAA-2012-007

Helen Forrester was the pen name for June Bhatia (née Huband). She was born on June 6, 1919 in Hoylake near Liverpool, England, less than six months after the end of the First World War. The eldest of seven children, her family lived comfortably in various charming towns and villages in the south of England. When her father was made bankrupt during the Great Depression, the family was thrown into poverty. Hoping to rebuild their lives, the family took the train to Liverpool where her father searched unsuccessfully for work. At the age of 12 Helen was kept away from school to look after her six siblings. Living together in a single room, the family relied on meagre handouts from the parish and strangers to survive. At 14, Helen rebelled against her life of drudgery and her parents agreed to let her attend evening classes to make up for her missed years of education. “Twopence to Cross the Mersey” tells the story of these years.

Helen lived with her family and worked in Liverpool until the end of World War II. She worked as an office girl for a charitable organization, and then became a social worker. Eventually she got a job at a petroleum installation on the Liverpool waterfront. She survived the heavy bombing of Liverpool but lost two fiancés during the war. Helen’s memoirs of this period are captured in “Liverpool Miss”, “By the Waters of Liverpool” and “Lime Street at Two.”

After the war, Helen began a career in the packaging industry. In 1950, she met Dr. Avadh Bhatia a brilliant young physicist from India who was completing his PhD at the University of Liverpool. She left Liverpool to get married in India, where they lived for two years. Their life in India provided the background for her novels “Thursday’s Child” and “The Moneylenders of Shahpur.”

The couple traveled extensively due to Dr. Bhatia’s academic career; first to Edinburgh, Scotland, then to Ottawa and finally settling in Edmonton, Canada in 1955 where Avahd became professor of physics at the University of Alberta. Their son, Robert, was born a month after they arrived in Edmonton.

Helen began to write seriously while in Ottawa and published “Thursday’s Child” in 1959. “Twopence to Cross the Mersey” was published in 1974 to critical acclaim, and became a bestseller when it was reissued in 1979. This established Helen Forrester as a major writer and continues to attract widespread interest. It has even been made into a musical and stage play.

Helen continued to write into her 80s. In addition to her memoirs, she has produced 11 bestselling novels. She also wrote under the name June Edwards.

Helen was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Liverpool in 1988 followed by the University of Alberta in 1993. Helen Forrester died on November 24, 2011 in Edmonton, Alberta at the age of 92.