From Glasgow to Australia with a secret shortbread recipe

ALEXANDRA resident Helen Hill is famous for her secret shortbread recipe, but there’s also a lot more to her experiences on the planet.

Helen was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and moved to Australia aged 10. She has since taken on an Australian accent, but can slip easily back into a thick Scottish brogue.

Now aged 84, she was just three years old when her father returned from the war. He was with the Royal Engineers and had been in Italy rebuilding bombed bridges. When her father walked through the door, Helen went screaming to her mother saying, “There’s a man and he’s got a key.”

Fortunately though, he brought Helen chocolates and a bottle of Chianti for his wife.

When her father was called up again, the family decided to move to Australia, although America was also an option as her father’s mother (Ney/Helen) and sister (Mona) were there. Helen was named after her grandmother.

Helen explained that her mother had married “below her station” by marrying a plumber.

This caused a long-lasting rift with her mother’s family and caused significant emotional challenges for her mother, Aina. Helen became a Lifeline counsellor later in life, so in a way, she was able to help her mother through others.

Helen’s father had a great aunt, Jean, who lived in Warrnambool, so the family moved there.

They weren’t ‘10 pound poms’ but instead paid their own passage as they wanted to escape the tenements, and the family’s memory of the bombs falling on Glasgow and the privations.

Helen grew up in Warrnambool, where she went to school “and almost drowned. The little guy that used to deliver….