Yes sir, that book's my baby MAVERICK author Helen McGregor is the first to admit her debut novel isn't really her parents' cup of tea.

But she does rather like the way Shrodinger's Baby is being marketed as a tale of sex, drugs and quantum theory.

Her heroine, the rational Juliet, shares a student flat with Billy the lad, hippy Chris, mad Petruchio and Kerry, the drama queen. Their life revolves around booze, soft drugs and casual sex. Until Juliet discovers a body at their digs. And then it disappears.

But, as Helen puts it, this is not so much a genre novel as "a murder-mystery that flirts with the philosophy of physics".

She actually writes under the androgynous title of HR McGregor, but has no particular beef about life as a woman writer.

"I just wanted to keep my writing separate from my work as an actress and it's interesting to have a writer's persona," she explains.

Her fiction is undeniably dark. So it was a relief to find her brewing nothing more potent than coffee when we met on her narrowboat.

The 35-year-old ex-actress has finally found her moorings on the Oxford canal after a lifetime dominated by her "travelling bug".

But she can still be found poring over her atlas and admits: "The best thing about living on a boat is being able to leave - just up-anchor and away."

Born in Uganda and educated at a Dominican convent school in Zambia, Helen enjoyed an "outdoorsy sort of childhood". But her blood is Celtic through and through: her dad is half-Scottish and half-Irish, while her mum is the daughter of a Welsh coalminer. Gordon McGregor's work as a university professor took the family to Africa, where his wife Jean worked for the United Nations.

They returned to this country when Helen - the second of three daughters - was eight and it was here that she became "completely stagestruck".

She adds: "We had quite a cultured upbringing. We were taken to the theatre and the ballet and encouraged to play the piano. I'm the only one who still can't."

But iIt soon became obvious that Helen could act and she won a place at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

Her first role was as the leading lady in Romeo and Juliet. It was the start of a six-year career in which she was rarely out of work.

As well as starring on stage, she made a recording of A Midsummer Night's Dream and landed a "microscopic" part in Taggart.

But while resting, Helen took an OU degree in Third World and women's studies, philosophy and economics.

"The degree kept me going while I was unemployed as an actress," she says. "It meant there was always something to get out of bed for in the morning."

She landed minor understudy roles at the National Theatre, but her passion for writing was fast overtaking her desire to act. "I loved acting, but was not very good at handling all the stuff that goes with it," she says. "There are fewer parts for women and some are not very inspiring."

She had already abandoned three previous novels - "I think I was trying too hard to be James Joyce" - but the plot was thickening. Already an avid fan of Star Trek, she began to read "lots of quantum physics for idiots books" and Schrodinger's Baby was born.

The 296-page novel took two years to write, followed by rewrite after rewrite. Publisher Piatkus finally accepted the 13th draft.

Says Helen: "I only gave it to my parents to read a few weeks ago. It's not really their cup of tea - too much sex and drugs - but they did think it was clever."

Helen lives on the narrowboat with her partner Jon Houchin and earns a living as a part-time tutor at the National Film and Television School.

One of her specialities is horror - a clue, perhaps, to the darker side of her novels.

Her next book, for instance, is based on a Keats poem about a woman who cuts off her lover's head and keeps it in a pot of basil.

"I guess I just love being scared," she says with a laugh. "But the new novel isn't as dark as Schrodinger's Baby - well, not yet, anyway." Un-covered

The book was originally intended to be a straightforward detective story called Death Of An Agent

Helen McGregor really did share a student flat like the one in the book, but without the grisly consequences

She denies it is autobiographical, but admits there is a bit of her in Juliet, Petruchio and Kerry

The paperback, published by Piatkus Books, is priced £6.99

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