About Helen

Helen Doe is a historian, author and speaker. It is people, often the ordinary and, sometimes unsung, heroes and heroines that attract her attention. She has publsihed books on the economic and social aspects of Isambard Brunel's great ships.The First Atlantic Liner, featured the stories of the passengers and crew on Brunel’s first ship which linked Bristol, Liverpool and New York. This was followed by a book on the ss Great Britain. Fighter Pilot, is her biography of a Battle of Britain Pilot and it was warmly reviewed, and became a best seller. She was co editor and major contributor to the award winning The Maritime History of Cornwall and her PhD research led to the groundbreaking Enterprising Women in Shipping in Nineteenth Century. Her recent books are Stanford Tuck, a biography of the WW2 ace and One Crew, the 200 anniversary history of the RNLI

She has appeared on many Radio 4 programmes and on TV. A well known speaker, she is much in demand as a cruise ship guest lecturer and is an accredited lecturer for the Arts Society (previously known as NADFAS)

She is a Fellow of the University of Exeter, where she previously taught on a range of courses and supervised postgraduates. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), and Chair of the British Commission for Maritime History. She maintains her interest in Cornish Maritime history as chairman  of the Editorial Board of Troze, the online journal for the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.

Helen was for many years a trustee of the SS Great Britain and in 2018 she was appointed as a member of the Council of Experts for the National Historic Ships, a government advisory body

Before studying at Exeter, she worked as a marketing consultant for a range of companies inside and outside the UK. Before that, her main career was in sales and marketing with IBM UK.