In the summer of 2006, Helen Pidd met her fellow Guardian journalist Alexandra Topping. It was “a little bit like falling in love”, says Lexy, as the pair bonded over their jobs, through chaotic nights out and on holidays together. Their similarities drew them together, explains Helen: “The two blonde babies of the Guardian newsroom, both from the north-west of England, both a bit gobby.” They told each other everything.

It was a friendship they both cherished, and it was only strengthened as their lives changed. They both fell in love, and Helen left the country and returned. They prided themselves on their ability to speak hard truths, safe in the knowledge that “the other person isn’t going to, you know, strop off into the distance and never speak to you again”.

When it came to having children, Helen was always sure she wanted to, Lexy was less sure. But then Lexy had two and Helen struggled through IVF. Slowly, under Lexy’s pressures of new motherhood and Helen’s struggle with fertility, their unbreakable bond stretched and stretched. “There was a point at which I thought: ‘This isn’t how I want this friendship to be’,” says Lexy. They explain how it felt to be at risk of losing such an important relationship and how they found their way through.

Listen to our Embracing a childfree life episode, from April 2023, on Helen’s experience of IVF treatment and meeting other childfree people, and read Helen and Lexy’s account of their friendship here.

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