In her first book My Mother Is A Troll, Helen Limon takes a light-hearted look at how teenage girls perceive their mums. As Mothers' Day approaches, she tells Women's Editor Sarah Foster about her colourful life - and why she doesn't think of herself as a writer.

HELEN Limon is chatting to me in her North Shields office, her tone jokey and relaxed. In the corner, her daughter Nathalie is tapping at the computer. When she speaks - and she does this rarely - it's mainly to contradict her mum. At 13, she's at that age when parents just aren't cool, and what they say is always wrong. When the conversation turns to her dad - Helen's ex-husband Michael - she takes a sudden interest. "Why did you two split up?," she asks innocently. Like a seasoned pro, Helen bats the question away. "We're not talking about that now sweetheart," she says calmly.

For mothers and daughters, the teenage years can be a torrid time. As girls fight for greater freedoms, their mum can seem their biggest threat. According to Helen, 43, it's not just teens who feel insecure. "I think a lot of mothers reach an age where they feel they can't control their daughters any more and I think they find that quite scary," she says. "I think a lot of issues that parents have around children are issues of control, but you've got no choice - you have to change. I think it's quite important to do that."

Her own experience bringing up Nathalie was what inspired Helen's book, My Mother Is A Troll. Written from a teenage girl's perspective, it describes the cringe-making antics of her mum - who has somehow become a troll.

"The book is based on incidents that either come from my own experience or friends' experience," says Helen. "Essentially, it's the daughter talking but as a mother reading it, you can see it from the other point of view. I just wanted to present that to other mothers."

While exasperated, the book's teenager is fairly tame, and the troll mother is equally mild-mannered. I wonder if life is this harmonious in Helen's house. "Nathalie and I have always been close but we have our moments when the dog gets itself under the kitchen table and puts its paws over its ears," she admits. "I'm a door slammer and Nathalie shouts, but we always try to resolve things. We talk things out after the shouting and door slamming."

When it comes to discipline, Helen, who lives in Whitley Bay, is easy going. "When you're a single parent and you're used to being on your own with that child, it's not really fair to have a child world and an adult world," she says. "As it's just her, I can be a lot more indulgent with her."

This laid-back attitude stems from Helen's own unorthodox childhood. Born in Hampshire, she spent her formative years in Cape Town. While as whites, the family led a privileged life, they were also exposed to apartheid. "Even as a child, I could see the absurdities of segregation," she says. "When my parents realised they weren't going to be the ones to change the system, we left."

After a brief spell back in Britain, the family moved to Malaya, where Helen scoured the local market for English books. "I had to read whatever was available," she says. "I used to love the Giles cartoons. I think I had a real feeling for pictures."

By the time of her A-levels, Helen had returned to the UK - but having moved around so much, she couldn't settle. At 18, she went to Bermuda to visit her aunt - and ended up taking an illicit detour. "I was meant to come back but I didn't," she says mischievously. "From New York I caught the bus to Canada, where I worked as a nanny."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, when she wanted to travel again, her father intervened. She was off to Australia and had planned to stop in Indonesia but he made her change to Singapore, thinking she would be safer. His belief proved unfounded. "On the trip from Singapore to Melbourne the plane went through volcanic ash and the engines caught fire," says Helen. "I had two cabin crew in front of me praying. I just remember being extremely calm and thinking, 'well bugger me'."

Despite her cavalier attitude, Helen admits that when the plane landed safely, and she absorbed how close she'd come to death, it gave her a new perspective. "I just decided I wasn't going to waste any time," she says. "I think you can look back on your life and think, 'this is why I've done the things I've done' - and that was it for me."

In Australia, Helen found work as an actress and model, appearing in a film shown to those arriving in the country. "There was a film showing you why they were spraying you with pesticides," she says. "I was the scientist in the white coat." She went on to New Zealand, where, despite her lack of training, she continued to be offered work. When at long last homesickness caught up with her, she returned to Britain - and promptly fell in love. "I came back to England when I was almost 21," says Helen. "I went home then came up to see a friend who was at Newcastle Polytechnic as was, and that's when I met Nattie's dad. We stayed until he graduated then went to live in Holland for ten years."

It was during this time that Helen gave birth to Nathalie, whose name is spelled the Dutch way. When they were ready to come home, the family moved back to the North-East, where Helen and Michael still had friends. Although separated, they both still live in Whitley Bay, and Nathalie spends half the week with her father.

Her many jobs - including in fashion, sales, and latterly, working for British Airways - ended in Helen reaching a crossroads. "I decided it was time for me to learn to do something properly," she says wryly. "Michael and I had split up and I realised that working full-time as a single parent wasn't an option. I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to go back to working for a big company. I wasn't sure what I did want to do, but I knew it wasn't that."

She studied for an MA in business management then, following her creative instincts, set up Zed Said publishing last year. Although she's produced four books, she rejects the notion that she's a writer. "I'm not a writer. I would be very uncomfortable if people described me as that," says Helen. "My books are always very highly illustrated. They're always driven by an idea."

Helen's philosophy is that by writing few words, she's leaving room for the reader's ideas. If this is asking a lot of them, she makes no apologies. "I think for me, somebody reading a book should be really participating in it," she says. "Why not just share your idea and let the other person play their part as well? For me, if you put in too many words, you push the reader out."

With My Mother Is A Troll, as with her other books, behind the cartoons and simple text lies a complex issue - in this case, the changed dynamics between a mother and daughter. Helen says that despite appearances, the story has a positive message. "What's really important to me is that the troll mother is happy," she says. "She's quite resolved with what her daughter thinks of her and I think that's important if you want to have a good relationship with your children."

* My Mother Is A Troll (Zed Said, £10). For more information, visit www.zed said.co.uk