A North East icon of entertainment will celebrate her 100th birthday launching a book of her poetry

Honorary Sanddancer Helen Russell, born on May 30, 1924, is one of the few surviving ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) members from WW2 - the elite troupe who entertained military personnel between 1939 and 1945.  

Joining ENSA as a 15-year-old, she toured England, Scotland and Ireland singing and dancing.   

Born in London, off Oxford Street, and near the London Palladium, young Nellie Torry, as she was christened, would wait at stage door to get the autographs of the great stars of the day.   

She her career aged eight, and performed in her first professional pantomime (Dick Whittington) at the Winter Gardens in Morecambe when she was only 14. 

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During the war, Helen married Colin Hillcote, who ran a dance hall in Belfast. 

At the end of the war, Helen and Colin returned to South Shields, Colin's home town, and she has been an adopted Sanddancer since 1946.    

In 1947 their daughter Beverly was born and Helen spent time being a caring mother while Colin ran a grocery store in Fatfield, Washington. 

 In the 1950s, Helen kept her hand in showbiz, singing at church events and, as a member of the South Shields Amateur Operatic Society, playing many roles, including Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun.  

A friend who performed in working men's clubs with an entertainment troupe heard Helen sing and invited her to step in when he was needing an artiste. 

She said: "I seemed to be well received and from there I became an artist in my own right, singing and dancing throughout the region at working men's clubs.

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"We didn't have a telephone in the house so I'd take calls on the local public telephone box to tell me where I was playing that night!  

“Sometimes it meant getting a bus to Newcastle and then catching another to, say, Stanley in County Durham, or Ashington in Northumberland, then heading back after 10pm - all the time humping my guitar and other equipment. I had no helpers!”

Fame led to her doing a television advert for Vaux beers in 1965 and appearing on variety shows filmed at Tyne Tees Television, including a double act with Bill Pertwee of Dad's Army fame and working with Dick Emery.

  Her plethora of on-screen appearances include When The Boat Comes in, Supergran, Catherine Cookson adaptations, Highway (during which she sang with Harry Seacombe), Tracey Beaker, Emmerdale, The Fast Show and the film Billy Elliot.   

On stage, Helen's credits include performing in her self-penned plays Off the Shelf and Keep Calm and Carry On, which were professionally produced at the Customs House in South Shields.

She was also an original Dirty Duster, a play which transferred to Newcastle Theatre Royal and sold out twice.  Helen was still performing in the Dirty Dusting tour until the age of 90.

Her regular successful contributions to BBC Radio 4's Poetry Corner sparked Helen's creative desire and she became enthused about writing poetry in the 1970s, a genre she returned during lockdown.   

Her new book of poems “Oh! Life is a Joy” will be launched at a free event at The Word in South Shields Market Place on Thursday, May 30 at 1pm. There will also be a "an in conversation" with Helen to mark her remarkable life and .

All profits from the book will be donated to cancer charities as Helen successfully fought off breast cancer a decade ago.