Her father became a farmer and hop grower in Sussex, where the family, including her younger brother and sister, settled.
She qualified as a nurse in June 1937, and in 1938, she won the Farndon Memorial Gold Medal, which allowed her to train as a midwife at the hospital without fee.
[1] She started in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, working in the air raid casualty ward, and was appointed the principal of the Macdonald Buchanan School of Nursing in 1946, even though she was the youngest member of staff.
There she introduced changes in the education system of nurses, splitting students time between the classroom and on the ward, advocating similar changes elsewhere.
[1][2] In 1952 she received a Red Cross scholarship to study education and administration at Columbia University, where she was graduated, earning her B.Sc.