Helen was one of eight children born in London. Although her parents left Ireland in the forties, Ireland was always described as home. Helen's parents brought her eldest brother back to Ireland when he was six months old to be looked after by his grandmother until he was two which had a lifelong effect on him. Helen describes her teens and twenties in London and in Ireland where she spent every summer from age ten to eighteen staying with her aunt and uncle near Bantry in Cork. She describes her explorations with sex and sexuality which she said were unremarkable in London but led to her feeling shunned in the small community in Ireland as a 'slut'. Although she once thought about moving to her aunt and uncle's farm in Bantry as a possible future, this dream was gone by the time she was eighteen. Helen touches on her father's alcoholism and the violence between the male members of her family. She and one of her brothers wanted to expand their horizons and have careers. She ends by talking about her special role in the family as the daughter who kept the connection to Ireland alive for her parents in a way that her other siblings did not.