'The door is not locked': Recollections of my life

Abstract

In this autobiographical account the author reflects on her life as a university educated woman who was born in 1916 into a middle-class family living in Scotland. The arrival of World War Two brought unexpected opportunities in that, married to a doctor with radical political views, she was able to break away from the traditional gender roles of her time and combine motherhood with a varied and challenging career. Various forms of employment have been engaged in over the author's lifetime, including working as a cypher officer and an administrator (in the Women's Royal Navy Service), a medical research assistant, an organiser of research committees and as a contributor to the New Dictionary of National Biography.