[2] Her mother, Jessie Chater, née Bedwell was chair of Littlehampton's District Nursing Association.

One evening she entertained the troops by playing "tunes from London shows, popular ballads and 'Your King and Your Country', a great favorite with the men"[5] on the piano.

[6] After her father retired in 1927, the family relocated to Littlehampton, West Sussex where they became heavily involved with St James Church.

[7] Chater met Cicely Bertha Hale, Girl Guide leader, suffragette, health visitor and author (1884 – 1981) in 1947.

She entered Durham University as an unattached student[10] to read music in 1919 where her professor was Joseph Cox Bridge and her examiners included Edward Bairstow.

During this time she studied viola and composition with the string instrumentalist, organist, author, teacher, composer, inventor of the violinda[11] and water-colourist John Hullah Brown (1875 – 1973).

From 1949 -1961 Chater held the position of Music Advisor, Commonwealth Headquarters, Girl Guide Association.

Musical highlights included conducting the singing at the All-England Ranger Rally at the Royal Albert Hall in 1946,[36] leading 10,000 people in song around a campfire at WAGGGS' 13th World Conference in Oxford, England in 1950[31][37] and playing the organ in both St George's Chapel, Windsor and the Royal Albert Hall.

She led the singing on board the frigate Foudroyant for Princess Margaret in 1950[38] and served as Music Advisor on the Girl Guides' Golden Jubilee Committee in July 1960.

[65] Chater had strong feelings about the quality of many vocal arrangements where "alto parts are too often a dreary shuffle from one note to the next and back again, while descants tend to become too elaborate and to smother the air".