In the 1950s, my mother, Jane Meadows, who has died aged 85, trained as a doctor at the Royal Free hospital in London, following in the footsteps of her mother and older sister. She loved medicine with a passion, but shortly after graduating she met Jack Meadows, a young astronomer and the love of her life. She agreed to marry him only three weeks after their first date.
She would never have described herself as a feminist but, after their marriage, Jane worked out her own version of “having it all”, by combining part-time work as a schools doctor with being a wife and a mother.
Born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, Jane was the second of four children of Charles Bryant, a graphic designer, and his wife, Eunice Tanner. Her father died in a car accident in 1937, when Jane was six, and her mother, who had qualified as a doctor in the 1920s, was called back to work as a locum during the second world war. She travelled all over Britain and by necessity deposited her children at boarding school year-round.
Jane and her older sister, Jenny, went to Cheltenham Ladies College, where she was told she was not clever enough to study medicine and should instead train as a cookery teacher. Whether her lifelong dislike of cooking preceded that conversation or was a result of it is unknown. Either way, it strengthened her determination to qualify as a doctor.
Jane and Jack married in 1958 and were an exceptionally devoted couple – she played a major role in his success as a scientist at universities around the UK. They spent many years in Leicester, where Jack founded the university’s astronomy department, and Jane worked in schools around the county.
In Leicester, too, she was ahead of her time in establishing successful clinics to treat childhood obesity and bed-wetting. Her approach to both was based on a unique, self-taught blend of psychology and pragmatism, drawn, in part, from the pioneering work of the surgeon Archibald McIndoe, and combined with an interest in nutritional health sparked by a cocktail party conversation with the Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, whose work on vitamins deeply influenced her.
Mum and Dad spent the last 30 years of their lives in Seagrave, a small village in Leicestershire, where Mum pursued her lifelong love of gardening. They opened their garden there for many years as part of the National Gardens scheme. Although her later years were difficult due to her worsening mobility, Mum never lost her love of life and her ability to look on the bright side.
Dad died earlier this year. Mum is survived by her three children, Sally, Mick and me, and eight grandchildren; her sisters, Jenny and Rosemary, and her brother, Martin.
