Award-winning Lancaster charity worker is officially appointed as Lancashire's new High Sheriff

That's because Helen Bingley is no stranger to life's challenges.

As one of an 'ordinary, large, working-class family,' she recalls growing up in Lancaster with no inside toilet or bathroom until she was 13. Yet she's not complaining - quite the opposite in fact. "You don't miss what you don't have."

Now the holder of a string of titles and awards– among them a 2018 OBE for voluntary services in the UK and abroad – she’s Lancashire's new High Sheriff for 2024-25.

Yet the woman who was officially appointed to her new role at a ceremony at County Hall in Preston has in no way forgotten her origins.

"I went to an ordinary, comprehensive school," said Helen. "I left Skerton School without any A levels and studied much later, part time whilst working as a mature student to achieve several post graduate degrees and a masters in administration (MBA) in order to develop my professional and personal life."

Something of an understatement, you might say, considering that by 2002, she had managed to notch up a raft of qualifications, from business administration to mental health law, to Urdu, to mountain leader training, which is her favourite pastime.

Clearly a rising star, within the space of a few years, the 'ordinary' Lancaster girl rose through the ranks of the NHS from nurse to executive director, chief executive and non-executive director of several NHS Trusts in the North West, including Calderstones, Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust, Guild Community Healthcare NHS Trust, Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, and the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust. More recently, she's worked for NHS England to support NHS Trusts with challenges and as Lead for the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) sector for the Integrated Care Board for Lancashire and South Cumbria.

Alongside, she undertook voluntary work for the likes of Amnesty International, Cumbrian mental health charity Mind in Furness and the Children of Russia Project – for which she received an accolade from President Yeltsin in 1993.

Yet a deep passion was ignited at the height of all this when an NHS colleague, Dr Mukhtiar Zaman, took her to Shamshatoo, an area just outside Peshawar in Northwest Pakistan 25 years ago.

Helen was so saddened to see people living and working in harsh conditions in the region's brick kilns, with a life expectancy of 38 years, that she and Mukhtiar began searching for like-minded people in Lancashire with whom they could set up the Abaseen Foundation. The Lancaster charity provides health care and education for people born into a life of extreme poverty with no option but to work in the kilns.

The Abaseen Foundation took off in a big way – which meant she eventually stepped back from full time NHS management, and the charity and the volunteers from across Lancashire and beyond received a Queen's Award for Voluntary Service in 2017.

A quarter of a century on from that first trip, Helen is now the charity's CEO, leading a large group of supporters, volunteers and trustees, mainly from the Pakistani and Indian diaspora in Lancashire, to support these people in north west Pakistan.

A fundraising event in Blackburn last year raised a huge amount of money and she has just returned from one of her biannual trips to the region to support the charity, which also has sponsorship schemes for children to go to school, feeding, orphans, vocational training and period poverty campaigns.

"This latest trip was to establish two new projects funded by the people of Lancashire – firstly a new school for 1500 children on the brick kilns where people live in dire conditions. Education gives these child workers opportunities for a better life," she said.

"Secondly, a new community hospital in this remote area where the communities have no access to health care, which will have a huge impact on the health and well-being of people who live and work on the brick kilns with no means of accessing healthcare and for whom we will aim to increase their life expectancy above 38 years.

“These people live on less than a dollar a day to feed their families and we provide a nutrition programme to improve the cognitive functioning of the children in school to help them to learn, and develop and improve the quality and length of their lives.

"There is no main water supply in these areas, water has to be found deep in the ground and a pump is then fitted to bring the water to the surface. The efforts of Lancashire people to raise funds for the new school and hospital will transform lives and support people to gain decent jobs and leave the brick kilns behind.”

Putting her mountaineering expertise to good use, Helen regularly takes a group of around 30 people a year, mainly from Lancashire, to the northern areas of Pakistan to raise funds, last year raising over £100,000 through a trek to Rakaposhi on the way to K2 and with a similar trek to Mount Toubkal, the highest peak in the Atlas mountains, planned for June this year.

Yet she also plays a big role in the voluntary sector locally as vice chair of Mind in Furness, a Cumbrian based mental health charity in Barrow-in-Furness, Millom and Ulverston, and leading projects including a nursing home-based charity supporting people with mental health issues and Prospect House, a Lancaster charity helping people with alcohol issues.

It should come as no surprise then that shining a light on the voluntary and charity sector across the county will be at the top of her priorities during her year-long tenure.

Helen said: "In 2020 more than 4,000 charities in Lancashire were registered with the Charity Commission and there are many more voluntary groups, social enterprises and faith groups that are not registered. Our society is dependent on these groups for so many things and they provide much needed support in many forms to so many people, often without recognition, constantly seeking financial support to provide services. A priority in my year will be to visit as many voluntary groups as possible to raise their profile and shine a light on what they do.”

All in all, with active roles in international, national and regional health care, management training and the legal sector as a magistrate – something she will relinquish temporarily when she becomes Lancashire's High Sheriff – it's fair to say Helen Bingley is a woman of many talents.

Yet it all began when she was growing up in Lancaster, which she recalls as a life of few privileges, but a great deal of family and community spirit.

There was 'no playground in the area,' she recalls, but plenty of 'made up games on the street' and a 'strong community'. Life was 'tough', she reminisces, and never more so than when the River Lune occasionally flooded the family home – but 'didn't seem tough – because that's all we knew.'

Highlights were playing out in the street and eating cockles wrapped in old newspaper that she'd picked with her siblings in Morecambe Bay. Her mam Norma, now 90, remains in charge of the large, close-knit family, always ready to step in to support each other.

The message she wants to get across in her year as High Sheriff of Lancashire is that 'this is a county full of opportunity’. She adds: "My motto is Carpe Diem – seize the day – and if you can seize the day, in Lancashire you too can aspire to become High Sheriff one day.

"I went from being an ordinary little girl in Lancaster, with ordinary parents, to being a senior manager in the NHS and charity sector and now becoming High Sheriff of Lancashire.

"My beginnings were nothing special yet I have achieved so much living in the County of Lancashire. I truly believe that I am not unique, that Lancashire County is a place of opportunity for everyone, and I hope to inspire people across the county to aim high as in Lancashire, my journey is evidence that anything is possible."