Helen's Page

On the 29 December 2009 we tragedy lost our Helen Bain in a drowning accident while she was crossing the Ruamahanga River on her horse Evo.

We knew Helen as an Endurance rider and a friend and realized she was extremely helpful, talented and efficient.

This is Another side to the life of Helen that perhaps not many of us knew much about

 Helen Louise Bain Journalist.  Born Wales September 22 1971. Partner Mark Round

Died in Masterton December 29 2009 aged 38

The headlines in the Dominion read” Feisty advocate got things done” When one year old Helen Bain’s family immigrated to New Zealand, the toddler was learning to walk and rode her mother ragged by insisting on climbing up and down the ship’s stairs by herself.

It was independence – and a poise – that was to characterize her future.

 Helen was an award-winning journalist with a steely resolve and irreverent wit. She was a petrol head committed to the environment. A communications manager who would limp into the office in designer clothes on Monday mornings with tales of endurance horse races over the weekend.

 Born in Wales her family emigrated when she was a toddler and settled in Wellington Stokes Valley, where she attended Tui Glen primary school and Taita College. Her family would holiday at farm stays in the Wairarapa, where her love of horses and the region was born.

 Aged 16, she announced to her family she had enough of living in the Hutt . She quit school and her family moved to the Wairarapa. Shortly after,she took herself back to school, completing her last two years of schooling at Kuranui School  and excelling, coming runner –up to Dux in her seventh form.   

 After a stint studying politics and journalism she got a job as reporter at the Wairarapa Times Age. Her talents did not go unnoticed and in 1994 she was quickly poached by Wellington’s Dominion newspaper.

Here she impressed her editors with her elegant writing and prodigious speed, distilling a two inch thick government report into a cogent news story in no time and looking round for more.

 Helen had several stints as a political reporter in the gallery, and was often fearless, writing unflinchingly as she saw things. Her swift shorthand was legendary. Her accomplishments were acknowledged through several Quantas media awards and in her ten years with the paper she also became a rare creature- a female motoring writer.

Each week she would have a new car to test- drive, using the commute from Wairarapa to put it through its paces, and commenting on engine specifics and mechanical attributes that left many others befuddled.

On one occasion she took Editor Richard Long’s Honda Accord for a test drive, deliberately putting it into a skid on an airport runway. The car passed muster, but the editor’s soundtrack- he had left Neil Diamond in the stereo – did not.

It was at the newspaper that she met her partner Mark Round. The pair bought land in the Wairarapa, rode horses in the weekends and made the long drive together every day to work.

 She was a passionate endurance horsewoman spending her weekends taking long rides on horse Evo, and her holidays with Mark loading up the horses and riding into the depths of beyond.

She was a stalwart of the Wairarapa Endurance and CTR Club being secretary for the last two years, organizing the National Championships and writing its newsletter.

 In 2003 Helen left journalism to work as press secretary for Labour MP John Tamihere, a man she seemed to like and loathe equally, and wrote his biography “Black and White”  In 2004 Helen returned to journalism as political editor of the Sunday Star Times, squirreling stories from the daily completion and persuading her Auckland bosses that politics mattered outside Wellington.

For the last three and a half years she worked as communications manager for Forest and Bird, cajoling friends and family into supporting the cause – whether it was by putting free advertisements on their blog, to joining her in running stalls in blustery Wellington streets to collect signatures for petitions. She appeared to know just about everyone and was a feisty advocate for what she believed in. She got things done.

She continued to write, authoring Forest and Bird’s magazine and much of a book, Wild Encounters, released this year. Helen edited the Mitsubishi magazine, Brilliant, and she continued to rail against bad writing, complaining to her family when she came across inelegant prose.

Helen managed to straddle both town and country, spending her weeks dressed beautifully and sparing in the cut-throat world of journalism and advocacy and planting her property with native bush.

Alongside the unsentimental journalism was a woman with strong love of the Wairarapa, of her horses, her family and having her feet rubbed.

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 The losing of Helen has left a very big hole in our club and our sport, and we all miss her like hell.  There is no bringing her back, but I am sure she would want us to continue forging ahead just as though she was still here with us.

I was secretary at the time I had the first contact with Helen, which was on the 25 February 2005.  I received an e-mail from her saying she had seen my flyer for the Awaroa ride and was hoping I could let her know a bit more about Endurance riding in the Wairarapa. She said she lived in the Wairarapa and had an Appaloosa and was interested in maybe getting involved. She was wondering what rides we might have coming up, what level of fitness and time is needed “- on the most basic level – I’m not planning anything too major.”

After sending Helen a reply giving her the details required, the next e-mail came from her on the 1 March 2005
Hi Bryan,
Thanks for sending me the endurance riding info - I have a few questions which are probably kind of dopey, but here goes:
-Would the 25km fun ride on Sunday, be suitable for a moderately fit (but not super-fit) horse?   Mine gets ridden on average 3-4 times a week for at least an hour each time over fairly hilly terrain at home, and he is a tough little bugger!  It's hard to figure out the distances I would usually cover because I normally measure rides by time not distance, and I wouldn't want to overdo things if he wasn't up to it. 
- Do the horses tend to ride in groups or separately?  This I ask because my horse does tend to have an unfortunate habit of bucking me off if there are a lot of other horses rushing about and it gets a bit too exciting for him! Otherwise, he's very quiet, honest!
- Would I cover the fun ride distance mostly at a walk or trot?  And roughly how long would the 25km ride take?
- How much earlier than the pre-vetting (for the fun ride) should I turn up? - and if I come along can I keep asking lots of dumb questions because I really won't have the slightest clue what I am doing!
Cheers,
Helen Bain, political editor, Sunday Star-Times, press gallery, Parliament, Wellington

I duly replied, and the next e-mail came on the 15 March:

Hi Bryan,
Just wanted to say thanks for your help re the Awaroa ride - was a good
experience, and interesting to see a branch of the horse world I hadn't seen
before.  Good friendly bunch of people, too, which does you all credit.  My
legs are bloody killing me now - the horse's fitness was fine, but my own
fitness leaves something to be desired!  I guess that is because I usually
ride on hills, meaning that I don't have to do much work and the horse does
... Sorry I didn't hang around for the prize giving etc - we had to get home
to a whole lot of chores.
Cheers,
Helen Bain

It wasn’t long before we felt Helen’s presence and ability at our rides and at our next AGM she was on our committee. Helen took over as secretary in 2008 and we all know how proficient she was at that.  A lot of the success of the running of the Nationals can be put down to Helen’s outstanding ability.

We miss you Helen

Bryan Whitehead 

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