Now it's her life on the line profile helen stewart

birthday girl on a luxury cruise of

the Hebrides.

The legendary Grand Prix champion had kept the cruise a secret from his wife of 39 years. It was a complete surprise. Accompanying Helen on the ship were some of her childhood pals, people who she hadn't seen for years and who Jackie had, with great difficulty, been able to track down.

But for Helen it was more than just an extravagant birthday bash. For Sir Jackie, too. Because also on board the Princess was their son, Paul, 36, and the cruise was as much a celebration of his triumph over ill health as it was anything else.

Just a year earlier Paul, a father of three, had been diagnosed as having cancer of the colon. By the time the cruise came along, he had endured painful chemotherapy and, fortunately, was in full remission. Yes, life for Helen must, indeed, have seemed pretty near perfect.

But that was in July. This week Sir Jackie revealed that now Helen is fighting her own battle against cancer. She was diagnosed (at the same

clinic in Minnesota, US, where Paul had his treatment) as suffering from breast cancer.

The condition was detected at a very early stage. She was operated on two weeks ago and, now back home, she is being treated with a course of radiotherapy. Once again, the Stewarts are faced with the worry and the trauma of life-threatening illness.

Ironically, just before that cruise in July, the Dumbarton-born former

racing driver said in an interview:

''It's been a very difficult year with Paul's illness, but we hope the worst is over now.''

Looking at Helen Stewart, it is hard to believe that she is, in fact, 60 years of age. She is an extremely elegant woman who looks much younger and still retains the fine, Scottish beauty which made her a successful fashion model earlier in her life.

Like Sir Jackie, she was born and brought up in Dunbartonshire. Originally from a family of bakers in Helensburgh, she first met her future husband when they were both teenagers in the town's Radio Cafe. Jackie was on a blind date, but as soon as he set eyes upon Helen, the unfortunate young woman was abandoned.

Helen and Jackie married in 1962. Some years later she recalled: ''He started racing after we got married. I suppose I was as naive as he was

back then. It all seemed so exciting. I didn't know what I was letting myself in for.''

In 1966 Jackie won his first Grand Prix - at Monaco - and Helen was pregnant with Paul at the time. From that day to this she has been content to take a back-seat in public. ''I'm just the wife of someone who has done very well and I'm very happy to stand behind him, but don't ask me for much more,'' she said.

But as Jackie Stewart, the flying Scot, pursued his brilliant career - chalking up three world championships and a then record of 27 Grand Prix victories - Helen Stewart spent much of her time with her heart in her mouth. As she sat trackside and watched the races, she learned to

cope by averting her eyes every time Jackie's car went past.

Every day she woke up to face the prospect that she might never see her husband again. Every time he walked out the door, she wondered if he'd come back. But she refused to dwell upon her fears.

By no means a natural thrillseeker or danger junkie herself, she had witnessed first-hand what happened to the wives and sweethearts of her husband's colleagues who had died at the wheels of their Formula One cars.

''I saw the suffering my girlfriends went through after they lost their

husbands. It was devastating, knowing that Jackie was still driving,'' she said. ''You learn the hard way to cope and I'm quite a strong person, which helped me get through.''

In 1968, when Jackie Stewart was at the peak of his racing success, the

couple made the decision to abandon Scotland in favour of an overseas tax haven. After considering Bermuda and Monaco they finally settled on - and settled in - Geneva, Switzerland, where they still have a home.

The move left Helen feeling isolated and alone, particularly since her husband's job kept him away from home for most of the year. She has said that Switzerland was where she finally grew up. There she was, with no friends, in another country, unable to speak the language, and with

two young children (she had by

then given birth to a second son, Mark) to bring up. ''I really had to stand on my own two feet,'' she remarked recently.

Jackie Stewart finally retired from racing - purely for the sake of his wife and family - in 1973. He made the decision at the start of the season but kept it from Helen right through to the night before the last race, the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. Ironically, he failed to take part in that last race because of the death during practice of his Tyrrell team-mate, Francois Cevert. He retired having exceeded fellow-Scot Jim Clark's record, a tally only beaten 14 years later by Alain Prost.

Along the way, he debunked the myth that Grand Prix drivers had to be devil-may-care extroverts to whom the risk of death or injury was simply part of the game. For years after, he devoted his time to initiating sweeping improvements to safety on and off the track.

For a while at least, Helen Stewart could relax in the knowledge that the racing driver in the family was out of danger. Then, when son Paul was in his late teens, she saw with ill-

concealed dismay the same love of cars and speed emerging in the boy.

In an interview at the time with The Herald, she said: ''I wouldn't say anything if he does take it up, but I doubt if I could really live with it: to watch my son, someone I'd created myself and brought up. It's worse than watching a husband.''

And then, revealingly, she added: ''Although I was very much a part of Jackie's life from our teenage years, I always knew that something could have happened to him. It was always there in the back of my mind. And if something had happened to him, I would probably have married again.

''It sounds terrible to say it just like that, but it's the way of things. Most of my friends who lost their husbands married again. A son is different. A son I can't replace.''

Eventually, while younger son

Mark opted for a career in TV production, Paul did realise his ambition to race cars. He never reached the same heights of success as his father and ended up as an executive with Jaguar Racing.

When Paul was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma of the colon, it came as a desperate shock to the Stewarts. Describing it as ''a very cruel and painful lesson'' for him, Sir Jackie said later: ''God has looked after me most of my life, but sometimes there are difficult lessons.''

Now, it seems, his God has provided him with lesson number two. Throughout her entire married life, Helen has been Sir Jackie's rock. He describes her affectionately as ''the homemaker, and very good at it''. She is happy to call herself the same. It is, after all, what she does. So far as her husband is concerned, whether it was in his days as a racing driver or now as an international businessman, she has been the one calming influence upon his life. And, for that, he remains in her debt.

Now, it seems, it's time for Sir

Jackie Stewart to repay that debt and help his wife and greatest friend through her recovery.

allan laing