Helen looked into her purse with deep anxiety. One shilling and sixpence. And payday was quite a few days off. What was she going to have to sacrifice in order to eat between now and then. She had worked in a Christian bookstore in the London suburb of Harrow for six years, but the wages were not keeping pace with inflation, and she did not see a way out on the horizon.

It looked like it was going to be baked beans for dinner the next few days till payday.

It was a short time later that a “chance” encounter at a mid-week Bible study and prayer meeting she normally attended that gave her pause. Eddie B., a friend of the leader, was an Englishman now living in New Zealand, where he was the national manager of a chain of Christian bookshops. Because of the connection, the leader introduced them. During the discussion, Helen flippantly asked, “What are the wages like in New Zealand?”

“Quite good actually,” he responded, also mentioning that he was very familiar with the shop where she worked. And then he asked, “How long have you been working there?”

“Six years,” she replied.

Eddie’s response had to set a record for the shortest job interview in history. “When can you come?”

The remainder of the evening passed in a blur for Helen. The idea of moving to another country, let alone to the other side of the world, was the last thing she would have contemplated. Travel featured so little in her thinking that she had not even made a day trip to France, not that finances would have permitted it anyway. Churning the whole thing over in her mind, Helen decided to ask for three signs from God that He was in this: that New Zealand would come somehow to her attention three times with no input from her.

The next day, as usual she phoned the former husband of her eldest sister, with whom she was still friendly. He worked shift hours, and had an arrangement that Helen would phone him each day about midday as a wake-up call. Normally, he would not answer the phone – Helen would just leave it ringing while she did something else. This day, however, to Helen’s surprise, he picked the phone up. “Oh, you’re awake,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m watching England play New Zealand at cricket!”

A short time later, a woman came into the shop looking for a music record. “Can you help me,” she asked, “I’m trying to find something suitable for my nephew in New Zealand.”

Towards the end of the day, Helen had to take the day’s shop takings to the bank, her way being past a travel agent. When she had gone past at the beginning of the day, there was nothing of particular interest in the window. Now, there was a full display highlighting travel to New Zealand!

“Okay, You don’t have to shout,” she said.

From the 1940s to the late 1970s, the New Zealand government operated the “New Zealand Assisted Passage Scheme,” which targeted British citizens – particularly young people and families – providing heavy travel subsidies to boost population and attract jobs skills. Benefiting from this, Helen paid only £25 ($50) for her trip. This was a big amount to try and find, but fortunately a tax refund she received after resigning her bookshop job covered the fare.

Helen arrived in Wellington just a few days before Christmas 1973. She was scheduled to work in the Hamilton book shop, but as it was so close to Christmas, Eddie invited her to stay with his family in Titahi Bay – just north of Wellington – over the holiday, before he took her up to introduce her to the Hamilton team.

South of New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, Hamilton at that time was a small city of about 90,000 people with a provincial feel, a huge difference from what she had grown up in. However, she adapted well, found welcoming accommodation with a Christian family and made some good friends, particularly at the local Baptist church. On her first morning of work, Helen quickly discovered that New Zealand has many turns of phrase not found in England. As she set out from home, the house mum called out “Hooray!” “Strange,” thought Helen, “why is she cheering that I’m going?” Later she discovered that “Hooray” (not “hurrah”) is a Kiwi way of saying “goodbye”.

The remainder of that year in the bookshop, however, was not a pleasant experience for her. The manager, an older woman, appeared to resent her and made life generally uncomfortable. The upshot was that at the end of the year, with a sinking feeling, she was summoned to the Wellington head office, expecting to be laid off. The result was quite unexpected.

“Helen,” said Eddie, “we made a mistake. When Mrs H. wrote some time ago that it was hard to get good staff, we thought she was asking for a new person. Hence I was delighted to discover you in England. I’m sorry things did not work out there for you. But we have a genuine vacancy in the Christchurch shop, and we would like you to fill that.”

Christchurch was a big turn-around from Hamilton. Although a bigger city than Hamilton, it also had a country atmosphere, which by now Helen was growing accustomed to. One advantage was that she could cycle to work. And her new boss was a delightful gentleman, who took Helen under his wing. She quickly felt at home.

John: At the time Helen came to my notice, I was working for Radio Rhema, a non-profit group that was trying to get a licence to establish a Christian station in New Zealand. (It was eventually successful, four years later.) At the time, the organisation operated on similar lines to a missionary organisation: staff were not paid wages and had to find their own financial support. Although I went into the Christchurch bookshop from time to time, I don’t recall seeing Helen there in the first half of 1975.

She really came to my attention in the middle of the year, when she was asked to bring a bookstall to a midweek meeting at our church, to accompany a discussion on marriage and family being taken by an older couple from outside the church. During the course of this, Helen made some comments to the effect that the church did not know how to relate to older single Christians. I resonated strongly with that, as I was now 30 years old, and one of only four unattached single people in the church. In an effort to help me blend in, I was made an honorary member of the church youth group!

I suppose I was partly responsible for my lack of female company. I had been told that one of the largest churches in town had 17 young ladies looking for husbands, but out of a (misplaced?) sense of loyalty did not want to church-hop just to go wife-hunting.

Thus my initial reaction to Helen’s comment was: “That would be a challenging person to get to know.” (I have never had occasion to revise my opinion!).

Apart from her first name, and that she worked for Scripture Union, I knew nothing about Helen, so in desperation phoned our pastor the next day for help, knowing he had a practice of filing everything. Armed with this knowledge, I headed off to the bookshop, trying hard to think of some excuse to ask her out.

As Radio Rhema did not pay wages, I had little spare cash to splash on dinner or a movie – my imagination in these matters was very much on the thin side. However, the church youth group was planning a sports night at the YMCA at the end of the week, and this seemed a good neutral place for a date. Unbeknown to me, Helen was not a sports fan, and when I turned up did everything she could to ignore or put me off. As in those days I was shy around girls and found it difficult to even ask one to go out, it was completely out of character that I didn’t give up but persevered. Eventually, with much reluctance, she agreed to come.

This was the beginning of the date from hell, particularly from her perspective, but almost as much so from my own. While I had a strong involvement in sport from an early age, sports of almost any kind did not interest Helen, so there was little in common for us to talk about or to engage her, and the atmosphere was not conducive to small talk anyway. It was awkward.

I quickly turned “awkward” into disaster. One of the numerous sports I had taken part in over the years was trampolining. Blatantly showing off, I “demonstrated” a somersault on the trampoline. Stupidly, I neglected to remove my spectacles first. They flew off onto the floor, breaking a lens – a financial as well as social “whoops”.

Out of pity, Helen agreed to play a game of table tennis, one of the few games she enjoys, so we trotted downstairs to the tables. To even things, Helen took off her spectacles. After a short time, she realised that if I could see as little as she could, I would not notice if she put her spectacles back on. I didn’t, and she cleaned me up.

Out of desperation, I suggested that we round off the evening chatting at a nearby coffee lounge. If things were bad at this point, they quickly deteriorated further. I don’t remember the conversation clearly, but my comments were typical of the worst example of an insecure male trying to impress a young lady – it was more about me than about her. In the process I came to the conclusion that she was the epitome of Christian women’s lib, while she came to the conclusion that I was a mysogynistic slob.