BLACKBURN’S Atlantic rowing heroine Helen Leigh and 7/7 London bombing survivor Lisa French will be coming to Blackburn Cathedral’s crypt this autumn to talk about their extraordinary lives.

They will be joined by retiring Bishop Nicholas Reade, Faeeza Vaid, chair of the Muslim Woman’s Network UK, Mark Waters, the boss of Church Action on Poverty, former Blackburn Cathedral Canon Chris Chivers and the Church of England’s inter religious affairs advisor Tony Howarth.

They will all be talking in ‘A day in the life of’ – a series of public crypt conversations with Anjum Anwar, the cathedral’s dialogue development officer and her guests over lunch at Blackburn Cathedral from September 18 to November 6.

Helen, 27, sailed across the Atlantic with a team of five other young women to raise awareness of the horrors of human trafficking.

The former Wilfrid’s High School pupil will finish off the series of chats on November 6 on her second visit to the cathedral to explain how this dreadful trade exists even in the local East Lancashire area.

Lisa was aboard the No 30 bus in Tavistock Square on the July 7 2005 when a terrorist exploded the bomb that killed 13.

Since then she has become an advocate for peace and the philosophy that it was criminals not Islam that caused the atrocity.

Lisa, a close friend of police officer David Rathband blinded by Raoul Moat in 2010 who committed suicide earlier this year, was chosen by Blackburn Women’s Voice as one of their most admired women.