Helen Forrester

Helen Forrester was the pen name of June Bhatia, a British-Canadian author who wrote bestselling memoirs about growing up in desperate poverty in Liverpool during the Great Depression. Born in 1919, she chronicled her family's descent from middle-class comfort to destitution in a series of memoirs beginning with Twopence to Cross the Mersey, which became one of the bestselling British memoirs of the twentieth century. The Moneylenders of Shahpur, narrated in audiobook form by Ajayta Rai, draws on Forrester's later life experience in India to tell a story set in the Indian subcontinent. Forrester's writing is characterised by its honesty, warmth and resilience, capturing the human spirit in the face of hardship. She emigrated to Canada and continued writing fiction and non-fiction throughout her life. Her audiobooks and books remain beloved by readers who value stories of survival and determination. She died in 2011.