Helen's book tells of how she suffered a parent's worst nightmare

Both of her sons died in their 30s within five years of each other and left Helen questioning her very identity.

Now, the 74-year-old born and raised in Blackpool tells of how she re-built her life in memoir published this week.

It’s entitled “Am I Still A Mother?” and, says Helen, reveals how grief gave way to the transformative, healing power of love, and ultimately, to a new sense of meaning in life.

“It doesn’t matter how old the children are - losing them is against the natural order of things,” said Helen.

“The loss of my first son Mounir to leukaemia at 34 in 2007 shocked us all and had a bad effect on my other boy Reda, who desperately wanted to be a bone marrow donor for his brother but wasn’t a match.

“He turned to drugs and it was a deadly cocktail of those which killed him five years later.

“After so many years as a mother it left me questioning my identity and that’s what the book is all about.

“Becoming a childless parent raises questions of identity and purpose that go beyond the already traumatic loss of a child.”

Born at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, Helen lived on Grange Park from the age of two and was known at the time as Ann Palmer – Ann is her middle name.

She attended Grange Park School, then Collegiate, at it old Beech Avenue site, and her father Harold Palmer was a keen writer, especially in his retirement, producing an autobiography and several children’s stories.

She was the first in her family to go to university, studying sociology and politics at Sheffield, where she met her future husband who was studying electrical engineering.

After graduating, she left the UK for her husband’s native Algeria, where her two sons were born.

She returned to the Fylde in 1979, having separated from her husband, living first in Singleton, then Staining Road End, and later moved south for work but has continued to visit frequently to see friends and extended family.

After years of creating documents for some of the world’s leading organisations, Helen turned to creative writing.

Focussed at first on fiction, events in her own life persuaded her that she had her own dramatic story to tell.

“Mounir was born in 1971 and Reda 1975,” said Helen, who is now based in Reading. “After attending Staining CE school, they went to Rossall and continued there even after I moved to Reading for work late in 1983.

“After they left school, I continued to visit Blackpool regularly while my dad was alive and since to see my cousins and friends. I have such fond memories of the area and love coming back.

“The book has been seven years in the preparation. I have always enjoyed writing and tinkered with fiction after writing for work for so many years.

“But after what happened with the boys – and I lost my dad around the same time as Reda – I thought ‘Why persist with fiction?’ when I have such a story to tell.

“I am neither a celebrity nor an established writer/journalist, but position myself as an ordinary woman who has lived an extraordinary life, which I hope will resonate with readers who enjoy memoir and true stories, with mothers, grandmothers and the many who have suffered losses of other kinds.

“I hope it gives a message of hope that eventually a life devastated by what is often described as ‘the worst nightmare’ can be rebuilt.”

“Am I still A Mother?” is published by Troubador on Wednesday, October 28, price £10.99 – ISBN No 9781800460348.