My Aunt Mary was a Doctor.  Her journey to qualifying in medicine is pretty impressive.

Mary was a very bright lady. When she was in primary school her teacher told my grandmother that Mary was the cleverest child she had ever taught.  But academic success wasn't easy for Mary. She was a teenager in the 1940's, when my grandparents were very poor.  Mary had a single set of clothes which was her school uniform.  She had to wear it to go to school, work on the farm and play with her brother (my father). So she was usually grubby, and perhaps rather smelly at times. Most of her teachers looked upon her neglected state as a sign of idleness and were not encouraging towards her.  However her parents were very encouraging towards both of their children, my father describes his father calling out to his mother, on many occasions;

'Madge!  Come and look at what this child has done!  The child is a genius!'

My grandmother was a quiet but determined feminist.

When Mary was around 15, her grandmother, who lived with the family, had a stroke and became bedfast.  Mary had to stop her schooling to help her mother care for her sick grandmother.  But Mary was determined to pursue her studies. She got a copy of the curriculum and worked on her own at home.  She had to fight with the school in order to be allowed to take her 'O' levels (the exams UK children took when they were 16 years old).

She didn't hear from the school about her exam results and assumed that she must have failed. So she got a job as a telephonist to help support the family.  Some months later she bumped into a girl who had gone to school with her.  The young woman remarked to Mary 'You must have been so pleased to get all those prizes'.  Mary contacted the school and discovered that she had passed and had achieved some prizes.

She came home and told her parents that she wanted to become a doctor.  My father, Peter, who was 2 years younger than Mary but had left school early without any qualifications, thought that it was a great idea and decided he wanted to become a doctor as well. Mary was at first disconcerted because she thought Peter would help her financially.  My grandparents encouraged them - even though they had no money.  Mary and Peter went to night school and part time college to complete their high schooling and then Mary got a place at Belfast University and my father at Birmingham University.

My father told me this story quite recently.  I had never known how profoundly my Aunt had affected my life.  The example she set my father meant that I was brought up a middle class doctor's daughter, with all the financial, social and psychological privileges that go with that. I am very grateful to her.