Jane was born in Amberley Gloucestershire during the war, her father was in the Royal Navy and her mother and grandmother ran a large, country hotel, complete with a huge garden which supplied produce for guests and family.
She was educated locally and despite being expected to work in the hotel, decided to apply to Bristol collage and train as a teacher where she met and shared a room with Rhona who became firm friends, a friendship which would last over 60 years.
On graduation, she found a teaching position in a Bristol School and when her boyfriend took a teaching post in Zambia, then, Northern Rhodesia, she decided to join him. They explored many parts of southern Africa and her photograph album is littered with safaris, bush adventures and weekend visits to towns and cities.
 
When her father became ill in the mid 60s, she decide to go home, travelled alone across central Africa, visited Zanzibar and boarded a ship in Mombasa and various ports of call on the way to London. She went back to Amberley and taught briefly at the local school but she had seen the bright lights and soon, a group of Australians girls, who she’d met in Africa, came and rescued her and took her to London. She found a position at a junior school in St Johns Wood, rose to deputy head.
 
She moved flats often and gathered a huge circle of friends who she kept in contact with for many years. She began working for the Prison Service, first at Holloway and then at Pentonville where she rose to Head of Department for over 20 years. She was a pioneer, breaking down professional barriers and standing her ground in a predominantly man’s world.
 
She enrolled at LSE and took a degree in Sociology, whist holding a full time job.
She never married but had a large circle of friends and was one of the first single women to secure a mortgage buy her own flat. She was a free spirit, an early feminist, a champion for human rights, an intrepid traveller, a French speaker, a counsellor, a chorister, a clarinet player, a theatre and film buff. On retirement she trained as a counsellor and counselled dozens/hundreds of clients, afflicted with numerous complaints and from all walks of life.
 
In 2005, she and Dennis moved to Wickham and she immersed herself in village life,
She was, Co-ordinator and driver for community care, Proof reader for the parish magazine,
Deputy chair of Meon Valley U3A, Volunteer reader at Wickham Primary School,
Thursday Club driver and helper. For many years worked with Dr Morgan O’Connell in his Portsmouth outreach group, assisting ex servicemen suffering from stress related illnesses.
 
Generous to a fault, she wouldn’t pass a rough sleeper without buying him a food and a hot drink and having a chat. She supported a dozen local and national charities and for ten years financed an orphaned African girl’s board and education. She was kind and considerate, funny and witty, ever active and always up for an adventure, she lit up the room and the atmosphere, treated all people, whatever their standing with charm and respect.
She made the world a better place.