 Her family moved later near to Eastbourne, Sussex, where she attended Brighton & Hove High School for Girls as a weekly border, a common practice at the time, when secondary schooling was not as widely available as now.During World War II, she joined the WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) in 1941, and met her husband-to-be who was at that time serving in the RAF (Royal Air Force).They married in 1942 and have (as reported in 2003) two daughters, Tania (born in 1945) and Domini (born in 1948).