Tuesday 12 May
Stories of the Human Spirit
A meeting with foreign correspondent 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.
“Won’t 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