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Helga outside of her family's castle

Helga was born in 1928 in a small town called Gloggnitz 60 miles south of Vienna in Austria. Her father was an accountant with the state railways and a keen Nazi although in later years became disillusioned when it became clear the atrocities Nazi's had perpetrated. Members of Helga's expansive family, spread across Europe including Poland and Hungary, lived in fear and there were many 'disappearances'. Her mother was one of 16 children.

At the age of ten, Helga saw Austria become part of the German empire in the Anschluss.Ìý It was necessary for all children to join the Hitler Youth which she did when she turned 11 in 1939, the year the Second World War broke out. Boys in the Hitler Youth had to engage in military training, the girls took part in ‘music and movement’ and knitting for the troops.

In 1943 her school was evacuated when a large factory was built nearby to produce aircraft for the war effort and so she undertook her schooling elsewhere. In 1945 she was walking home from a camp when she was shot at by American aircraft.

Later that same year, the Russians spilled over into Austria from the Hungarian border and she and her mother were sent by her father over a mountain range to escape. Using bicycles and trains, they eventually reached the house of an aunt in Obervellach, a small village in Western Austria some 200 miles away. Helga recalls throwing stones at the window with her mother to attract the attention of the occupants who were unaware that family members were about to make an unexpected visit. There they stayed for 2 years.

ÌýDuring her interview Helga candidly reveals they feared the advancing Russian troops would take advantage of women of any age, young girls and older women were no safer than any other she says and her father was terrified that they might suffer the same fate.

In 1947, her family went back to Gloggnitz, but Helga went to Vienna to finish off her education. After completing the equivalent of 'A levels' Helga then found herself working in a wholesale jewellers. It was February 1950 when she met an Englishman, Peter Archer from Hull. Peter had been posted to Austria to work in the radio technical side at the airport by the firm he worked for.

They met at a ball and she wrote down her telephone number in lipstick to give to him and was most surprised to receive a call later from him to ask her out. A whirlwind romance followed. Austria was divided up amongst the allied and Russian forces just after the war into zones under their control. Travel within theÌý zones was extremely restrictive and Helga and Peter at great danger to themselves sneaked into the Russian controlled zone to tell her parents that they planned to marry. They wed at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna six months later in July 1950. Marriage was the only way Helga could have left Austria as this was the only way she could follow her new husband who had been posted to the Sudan.Ìý

After only two months in the Sudan they were to move again, this time to Kenya and Nairobi where her first daughter Julia was born. They stayed until summer 1952 when they fled the Mau Mau uprising.Ìý On returning to this country Helga’s husband Peter got a job with Blackburn Aircraft in Brough.Ìý Helga worked in the furniture department at Debenhams Department store until 1982. She has never forgotten her Austrian roots and for many years has made regular trips to see her extensive family. Helga turns 80 this year and is returning to Austria with ten of her English family to celebrate the occasion.

Helga's photograph was taken in 1973.Ìý It is significant, as her father’s family lived at the castle in the background, it's called "Seebenstein" or seven stones.Ìý Helga's ancestors were called the Steiger Von Amsteins and they were forced to move from it in 1830 when the government discovered they had been holding secret meetings for the freemasons.