Helen Womack

Helen Womack spent most of her career reporting from Moscow, in the days before the war with Ukraine.

She started out as a junior journalist in Vienna, covering the countries behind the Iron Curtain, and ended back in Central Europe, writing about refugees from a base in Budapest.

In this way, her professional life came full circle.Helen has written three books The Ice Walk, about her experiences in Russia; The Turquoise Suitcase, about an extended interlude in Australia; and Backpacks and Suitcases, about the defectors she met during the Cold War and today's refugees, fleeing war and hoping for safety.

Throughout her career, Helen chose to walk with ordinary people and report their small struggles against the background of the bigger geopolitical picture.

It was the Russian housewife, searching empty shelves for ingredients, that Helen's readers remembered, not the faceless officials in the Kremlin.Wont your columns be depressing a newspaper editor asked, when she suggested writing about her Russian neighbours and how they were coping with the shock of market reforms in the 1990s.

But on the contrary, the stories were always touching and often funny, as the indomitable human spirit came shining through.It was the same with the refugees.

Many of them had been through hell seen their homes bombed or lost their loved ones at sea yet again and again, their bravery and resilience stood out, as they reinvented themselves in new communities.So this is the common thread running through all Helen's stories.

The conditions are difficult and the topics are serious but there's hope and humour too.

You will not be weighed down but go away feeling lighter after hearing the Stories of the Human Spirit.All three of Helen's books will be available to buy.

And there will be plenty of time for discussion with an author many of you may recognise, as Helen divides her time between homes in Budapest and Filey.