She attended Bishop Fox's School in Taunton, and completed 2 years of undergraduate study in English at Bedford College, London.

[3] Hector trained as a nurse at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London where she was "taught by a very frosty tutor", with a very formal and rigid approach.

Hector was in charge of nurses' preliminary training at the Manchester Royal Infirmary at the beginning of World War II.

She then ran a surgical ward at St. Bartholomew's Hospital during the London Blitz, treating mainly acute injuries of bombing victims.

For a decade after she retired, she was the lecturer in charge of the 2 year Sister Tutor's Diploma Course at Queen Elizabeth College.