| Background | William Charles Clark, who had been born in Central Russia, found work in Hughesovka, where his aunt Sarah Jane was the wife of Samuel James. At the Hughesovka club dances he met a Russian girl, Mary Penkova, whom he married in 1913. Their daughter Helen was born in July 1914. In November 1914, in company with others, William Charles Clark left to volunteer for the British army, expecting to return to Hughesovka as soon as the war was over. The Russian Revolution and Civil Wars intervened, so it was not until 1925 that Clark was able to return. During this period Mary Clark, née Penkova was able to find work in the colliery office, while her daughter Helen was cared for by her grandparents. Helen Clark attended school in Leningrad and later in Baku, the capital of Azerbaidzhan (Azerbaijan), where her father, after his return, worked for the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company. Helen Clark herself found work in the Company’s Moscow office, but in 1933 the Company evacuated its British employees, after the arrest of six of its British engineers accused of spying. Helen Clark joined her parents and young sister in Britain.
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