My wife, Margaret Wolfendale, who has died aged 85, led a very useful life as a doctor, initiating in 1963 a cytology service in Buckinghamshire for the screening and early detection of cervical cancer. To do this she trained a group of laboratory technicians to screen specimens, under her supervision. She ran this service as a consultant for 35 years, and it grew to be of great importance in detecting life-threatening infections.
Margaret was the eldest of the three daughters of Agnes (nee Fisk) and Stephen Paton; she also had two brothers. Her father taught languages at Radley college, and Margaret was educated at Dragon school, Oxford, during the war, one of the few girls allowed there. She then studied classics at Cheltenham ladies’ college and, later, science at Radley, before graduating in medicine from the Royal Free hospital, north London, in 1956.
She took jobs in Nottingham before moving to a maternity unit near Clapham, south London, and I met her at this time at an impromptu musical evening. I was designing electronic instruments, and was impressed to discover that she was a doctor. We married in 1958.
We adopted our four children over six years, each of them at a few weeks old and nurtured by Margaret while undertaking medical work in the mornings and evenings. She went on to play a great part in encouraging our grandchildren by providing music lessons, trips to Paris, cultural outings and summer jobs.
On retirement in 1996, having moved to a house with four acres of land in the Buckinghamshire village where we had raised our family, Great Brickhill, Margaret became a successful breeder of rare breed Shetland cattle and Kunekune pigs. She learned to scuba dive at 80, and travelled to India and to Nepal, where she supported schools for disadvantaged children. At 82 she volunteered to become a non-directed kidney donor, with a successful outcome for the fortunate recipient, who is still in good health.
Recently Margaret welcomed and helped Syrian refugees in Milton Keynes, via the Red Cross. She was also in demand as a companion to local people who needed someone to help their understanding of medical consultations.
Margaret was bold, brave, adventurous, determined and greatly admired. She is survived by me and by our four children, Alistair, Julian, Clare and Naomi, six grandchildren, a brother, John, and a sister, Stephanie.
Margaret Wolfendale obituary
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