Margaret Leslie Stephen

Assistant in general practice Wallington, Surrey (b Liverpool 17 September 1919; q Liverpool 1942), died in Edinburgh on 24 December 2001 aged 82. Margaret was the daughter of a consultant physician and paediatrician. In 1927 the family moved to Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire and she was educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College. She went to Girton College in Cambridge to read natural sciences and then returned to Liverpool to complete her medical degree in 1942.

She was by this time engaged to Stuart Stephen, whom she had met in Cambridge and who was a medical student at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. She moved to London to do house officer jobs at the children’s hospital in Great Ormond Street and Windsor. She and Stuart were married in 1943.

Her son was born in 1944 followed by two daughters, and she devoted much of the next 20 years to looking after her family. She also assisted Stuart in his general practice in Wallington in Surrey as well as becoming involved in family planning and marriage guidance counselling.

In retirement, she and Stuart moved to Banstead, where she was active in the local Arthritis Care group. In 1999 they moved to Edinburgh to live close to their elder daughter but Stuart died shortly afterwards. Margaret herself became increasingly immobile as a result of a hip problem but remained sharp and alert. She underwent hip surgery in August 2001 and suffered a series of complications, which ultimately led to her death. Her three children and eight grandchildren survive her.