She began her career as a teacher, first in South Africa, before moving to England where she taught Latin at Fritham House, a private school in the New Forest.
[1] From 1980 she was affiliated with the Classics department at the University of Cape Town, and was appointed an associate professor.
On her retirement in 2000 she was appointed an Honorary Research Associate in that university's Department of Private Law.
Her expertise on the ‘Old Authorities’ was built through translation work she embarked on at the request of the South African Law Commission, first in 1966.
She received this honour in recognition for her two-volume translation of Jacobus Voorda's (1698 - 1768) Dictata ad Ius Hodiernum (Lectures on the Contemporary Law).