[2] When she was old enough she began a degree at Oxford University, but her studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War, 1939.
During the war she worked for the BBC, but afterwards she returned to Oxford and completed her undergraduate studies in zoology.
[3] Bastock then became a member of St Anne's College, Oxford and studied motivational drives in animal behaviour, working with Desmond Morris.
[4] She studied the relationship between behaviour, genetics and evolution using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.
[6] After completing her D.Phil., Bastock continued working on courtship behaviour and wrote a textbook on the subject.