[1] Around 1970, Thompson was part of Neil Ardley's New Jazz Orchestra[2][3] and appeared on albums by Colosseum.

Due to Parkinson's disease, which was diagnosed in 1997, she retired as an active saxophonist in 2001 with a farewell tour.

[9][10] After she was hospitalised with atrial fibrillation, her attendance in an accident and emergency department was featured in an episode of the Channel 4 fly-on-the-wall television documentary 24 Hours in A&E in October 2020.

She was a regular, along with her husband drummer Jon Hiseman and bassist David "Dill" Katz in the underground "Cellar Bar" at South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell during the late 1970s and 1980s.

She played the incidental music in the ITV police series A Touch of Frost, starring David Jason.