Hi Helen,
Just writing to say how I miss your weekly ‘blurb’ in the Tuesday Waikato Times. The paper just isn’t the same on Tuesdays any more. I logged onto your website to see if you had ‘got the sack’ but now I know the reason your column has been missing, so …. Happy writing… & I shall look forward to the book!!!!!!!!!
… & when I need a ‘shot of Helen Brown’ I shall log on & read some of your articles for a ‘breath of fresh, unadulterated air’.
Cheers, Yvonne Rothery, fan from KawhiaJ

Goodbye and a big thank you to you, too, Helen.  I have always loved your column from the first days- the way you make the little everyday things into a thought/smile/tear provoking pause in the journey of life.
 I will miss you a lot.  Good luck with the book;- here's to it!!
Cliff and Agnes Money

Thanks Helen for all those lovely stories you wrote, and had published in the ChCh Star. We will miss them. It was always the first thing Anne and I read.
Was at the foot clinic this afternoon and the Lady massaging my feet was saying how she was going to miss your articles and being the boaster that I am, I piped up that you were a friend of mine and had visited, and further have a look on your web page and you will see Mrs C and I. They were impressed.

Hope you are all well and thanks again for such lovely stories.
Wishing you every success with your new challenge, love and regards Jim

Hello Helen,
The family was traveling during the recent school holidays so I did not see your 25 April CHC Star article until well past that date.
I am definitely happy for you, but will miss your warm humour and observations about life.
I wish you the best with your book and hope that one day you'll return to the Star (and others!).
Your columns have been a favorite ever since we move to NZ nearly 8 years ago.

Take care and thanks!
Dave Evans
Christchurch

Hi, Hope the book is going well. Sure miss your column in The Christchurch Star. Would be the first article I would read every Friday. Look forward to you coming back and reading your book.

Regards. Marie.

I was saddened to read that Helen Brown will no longer be able to entertain us each Monday morning. Do pass on my best wishes to her and wish her every success in her new adventure.
Doreen Geddes
Timaru

We are going to miss your column so much. I really looked forward to it every week. I wish you well for the future and look forward to maybe a new column
in the not too distant future.
Marie Slattery Christchurch

Dear Helen,
Let me introduce myself. I’m another of the Penpushers in Christchurch – as Briar often says, I’m the naughty one. The one who doesn’t write as frequently as she should, the one with all the vices that the others in the group suppress. You’ll know what I mean. Chocolates, wine and other joys in life. Well, someone has to set an example don’t you think?
Seriously though, I want to say how much I’ve enjoyed your columns over the years. Yes… I’ve agonised with you, laughed, shed a tear or two and on many occasions, identified with you. You have a wonderful knack of making us all part of the human race when sometimes we feel a bit isolated.
Good luck with your book. I’m looking forward to reading it. We had a border collie who, in temperament, sounds very much like your Cleo and after 16 years we miss her greatly.
Enjoy your mission and as Briar said ‘Strap the crampons on tight and enjoy the view’. As Sir Ed said “It’s not the mountains that we conquer, but ourselves.”

All the best,
Pat Braithwaite

Having just returned from four glorious days holidaying with my family I have been catching up on the  newspapers and  immediately went to your column which is my all time favourite. It was with HUGE regret that  I read this is your last column for a while.PLEASE do come back!!!!!!!!!!!!I I (and all your other loyal readers) just adore your  fabulous stories. I find your writing so down to earth and humorous. I also consider us readers so very lucky that you share with us your family life through laughter, sadness and special family events and tribulations. We feel like we know you and your family and there is always something that we can relate to in our own family lives.    Your column is my absolute favourite part of the Timaru Herald and it is going to leave a very big gap!!!!!!!!!!!
All the very best for your new book and please do come back, we want to hear about your sons wedding!!!!!!
With very best wishes from an avid fan
Leanne Allnutt

Hi Helen

I'm writing to you again and as with my previous letters feel the need to reintroduce myself because I write so infrequently.  I'm a member of the Penpushers writing group, of which you are an honorary member, if you remember?  I guess you could say that while the Penpushers are enthusiastic writers we're not good correspondents,  it is a different genre after all. 

Anyway after your last column, and here we're talking in more than one sense of the word 'last', I felt it important I finally did actually write to you instead of merely thinking about it.  Our group has mixed feelings about your planned break from writing the column, and I don't mean that we are relieved or not.  Our mixed feelings are that while we will miss your enjoyable column we're delighted that you're writing a book.  We're full of curiosity about it and are waiting anxiously to know more.  Will it be a work of fiction or something rather like your column, a reflection of life in all its quirkiness?  Whatever it is we look forward to seeing your work in print and until that day comes we wish you all the best.

Good luck with your mountain climbing and ignore that advice about not looking down.  Because if you only look up as you climb you can only see the work yet to be done.  If you look down you can see how far you've come, but of course don't look down too soon.  My advice about mountain climbing would be to stop frequently to admire the view as you climb - it's going to change at each step and get better as you advance.  And how do you admire the view as a writer?  Well I'll pass on Pat's advice at this point - Pat tells us she says, 'I think it's time to put the kettle on.'

We never did manage that cup of coffee together but we're always ready and willing to have one with you so I'm sure there'll be a chance some time when you're next in Christchurch.

Warmest regards
Briar McMahon

Hi Helen

Last time I wrote to you was about 1991, when I first started writing a column for the Waikato Times about being an idiot lifestyler with animals.
I mentioned then that it had been your columns which had given me the courage to offer my efforts to the Times.

Well they ran for 3 years (a mere blip on your timescale) and then they asked me to become a 'contributor' writing about proper farming issues.

Since then I've been writing both for the Times and another magazine called Coast & Country which comes out of Tauranga and is delivered to both the Bay of Plenty and Waikato rural boxes.

Last year I was approached by an Auckland publisher to turn the columns into a book.  Somehow I immediately got a huge case of writers block, and haven't managed it - yet.  I tell myself that perhaps when I retire..... (I'm nearly 66).  In the interim I'm having huge fun going to farming events, and being considered knowledgeable by a huge number of farmers.

I also write a monthly column for C&C and you may well enjoy my latest.

In the meantime I do hope that you can dredge your memory to produce those 85,000 words.  I shall miss your columns but know, from experience, that one needs to be able to completely focus, to write that much.  Good luck with the book.

Regards
Sue Edmonds
The farming writer

Hello Helen
Just a quick note of thanks for all your columns we have enjoyed so much over the years. We felt such a rapport with you away back when the column was in the Wellington paper (was it the Evening Post or Dominion? - I'm not sure) your experiences so often seemed to be running parallel to our own.

We were delighted when the column commenced in the Times Age, which to be honest has gradually deteriorated from the 'local' it once was as APN took over and reduced local staff replacing local news with features most of which, sadly, do not match up to yours.

And now you are going!  Bugger the publisher luring you away! However where would we be without books? and somebody has to write them. So from us it's 'all the best' and hope the book repays all the work which will go into it. (Our son has been fortunate enough to have a few published so I have a fair idea of what is involved).

So once again thanks for those columns we sure have enjoyed them.

Anne and Mike Beckett

Just read in the Waikato Times you have taking a break
hope it is a short one as you are the only columnist I read between getting home from work and starting organising tea for the family.  
Look forward to your return
jan

Helen,
Well miss you.  Good luck with the book, and please come back soon.

Regards,
Peter Schaare

Hi Helen, come back soon. I need your weekly dose of 'strength and madness' to ensure mine is not the only  life that lurches from crazy to crisis. You pin down the puzzle we call life into a simple recognisable roller coaster of daily ups and downs, and turn that into something that almost looks like normal, .....whatever that is.  
Cheers, Gina M, ChCh NZ 

It was with much sadness that I read you last column telling us that you would be taking a (well deserved) break to pen you next book.

I have been an avid reader of your column for many years and love hearing the stories about you, your family and all the quirky and zany things that happen. I love your view on life and the way that you translate that to your many readers.

I feel that you I have come to know you as a friend  and when you advise that you are taking a break from you column, it is though that relationship is somehow temporary ceased. I am certainly looking forward to your latest book but never the less that 'knotted' feeling about not having my weekly fix of your wonderful stories is real.

In our house you are affectionately rreferred to as 'my hot date with Helen'. Every Friday night when the Christchurch Star is delivered I enthusiastically open the paper to you column. It sit down with a glass of wine and just enjoy the story that you are telling. When the laughter becomes audible  my wife comments that my hot date this week must be good. It's nice knowing that the person who you are nearest and dearest to is let you go on a hot date with another person!!!

Thank you for all the many wonderful stories that you tell and the absolute enjoyment that you bring to peoples lives, through your column each week. All the best with the book and I will be looking forward to the finished product.

PS - I have never written to you before but just felt compelled to do so after reading your last column.

Thank you and all the best
Shane

Hi Helen. Sorry to leave you’re leaving us for a while. Have thoroughly enjoyed your columns in the local Christchurch Star and will miss you. My mates and I often discuss something you’ve written about at our regular Friday night sessions at the pub – with mirth, or with surprise. Glad you’ve stayed a Kiwi through it all. Go well, and come back soon. Cheers Eddie Martin

 Oh, woe is me !       How  am I,   a-soon-to-be 78 year old male,  going to survive another 22 Mondays without my weekly fix of Helen Brown ?      One of the first things I always read in Monday's Timaru Hurled.

Best of luck with your new project,  hope the crampons grip well !

Hi Helen,
For years I have read your column in the Christchurch Star, so I was sad to hear that you are taking a break.
I shall really miss your zany humour and the wonderful stories about your delightful family. Infact I enjoyed your articles so much I often e-mailed them to my family overseas.

Good luck with the book, I shall look forward to reading it as I am sure it will be of the same high standard that
your columns are. Now I have found your web-site I will log in from time to time to look for updates.

Kindest regards,
Val Stanley

Hi Helen  I know you will be inundated with emails and are going to be sorely missed.  Good job people don't actually have to pay for the Star otherwise readership would plunge!!  The Star is actually a great paper but I will miss your column and have always enjoyed reading it, usually before everything else.    I can always relate to the things you write about and it is guaranteed to bring a smile to my face.  Good luck with your book, 85, 000 words sounds formidable, especially by October,so please do not bother about replying to this because you will all the time you have and more.  I just hope you will let us know when the book is published and that one day you will return to writing in the Star.  Good luck to you and your family I will miss hearing about them, Regards, Mary Stanley-Shepherd

Hi Helen
Thank you for your wonderful column that I have read unfailingly in the Marlborough Express. Gut wrenching or amusing, it is so refreshing to read about things that many of us are also experiencing.

I wish you well with your book and look forward to it appearing on the bookshelves and in our hands.

Diana Wadsworth

Dear Helen,over the last 30 years i have laught and cried with you,never missed your column in the star on a friday night,bought all your books so look forward to the next,wishing you and your family all the best for the future,love and best wishes,
Ddenese Cumming

Hi Helen, my wife & I have enjoyed your articles for quite a while now & the Star will not be the same without them.  Best of good luck with your book & we hope some day to resume reading your articles. 
Cheers, String. (AKA L.R. & I.A. Garner)