Here’s a mortgage story with a bit of Barnsley bias!

It’s a true Capital tale – as Barnsley-based financial management company Lifetime helps a Barnsley-born woman buy a house from another Barnsley-born woman – in London!

Helen Clarke, originally from Birdwell, is the Production Director for the British designer Margaret Howell. She went to Worsbrough High School, Barnsley Sixth Form College and Barnsley Art College before going on to study Fashion Design at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

She eventually pitched up in London and has been living in the capital for the last 20 years.

Earlier this year Helen (pictured outside one of Margaret Howell’s London shops) decided to move from her one bedroom flat in Tottenham and started ‘looking around’ for a house.

She eventually ‘fell for’ a lovely place, in Forsyth Place, Bush Hill Park, Enfield.

And this is where the story took on a real Barnsley twist!

The owner of the Enfield property was a lady called Margaret Cook. And she too was born in Barnsley!

She still has a sister in Cawthorne, and went to the old Barnsley Grammar School on Huddersfield Road, which, in later years, turned into the very same Sixth Form College Helen attended as a student!

Said Helen: “She had lived in the Enfield house for 46 years, while I’ve been in London 20 years. Two Barnsley-born people who have never met suddenly coming together in London over a property. Talk about coincidence!”

Helen duly called her sister Karen, the office manager here at Lifetime, for help with the mortgage.

Karen got colleague Michelle on the case – and today is the day when Helen moves in!

“It’s been a dream working with Michelle!” said Helen. “She has taken away all the stress and anxiety of buying a new house. Everything was done very quickly and efficiently. I cannot praise her and Lifetime enough.

“Today I will mainly be unpacking boxes, but it feels good!”

• Helen will be ‘popping back up’ to Barnsley early next month, and will be making a visit to Lifetime House.