She was born in Spain at the time of the Civil War, spent her early years in Vichy France, received her primary education in Mexico and her secondary school and university education in New Zealand where she graduated in medicine.
She returned to Europe and settled in London, where she obtained her London Fellowship in Anaesthesia and was appointed Senior Lecturer and Consultant at the Royal London Hospital.
Concurrent with her hospital work and since retiring, she has translated literary works from Spanish into English and launched into her own writing. Her autobiography, My Innocent Absence, Arcadia Books, was published in 2010.
She is married and has two daughters.