From bride doll to suburban survivor

Press, 2 July 1983, Page 12

From bride doll to suburban survivor

Helen Brown was born 29 years ago in New Plymouth where she attended, “mostly unwillingly,” New Plymouth Girls’ High School. Following her mother’s footsteps, she embarked on a career in journalism, attending Wellington Polytechnic, then working at the “Dominion.” Meanwhile, she’d met ship’s radio officer Stephen Brown, whom she was to marry after a letter-writing courtship that lasted three years. She worked on a weekly magazine in England while Stephen helped prepare the rail ferry Arahanga for its maiden voyage to New Zealand. Back in Wellington, they moved to a new housing subdivision in Karori, and had two sons, Sam and Robin. Helen continued writing for enwspapers, radio, and, later, television. Her weekly column about the improbable adventures of a young wife and mother trapped in a gorse-ridden, would-be executive suburb won a wide circle of fans. Selections from this column were published in a Whitcoulls hardback book, “Don’t Let Me Put You Off,” and appeared in the Sydney “Sunday Telegraph.” Reeds will publish a further collection of her articles as “Confessions of a Bride Doll” this month. In January this year Sam, aged nine, was run over and killed on a street near the Brown’s home.