After retiring from the civil service in 2006, I started researching and writing a biography of Dame Janet Vaughan. I had seen Polly Toynbee interviewing her on TV in a series first broadcast in 1984 and titled Women of Our Century. She was the scientist among the six women featured, but also a pathologist, social reformer and, without being an overt feminist, influential advocate for women’s rights. The biography will be published on 5 June, titled Bloomsbury, Belsen, Oxford: Janet Vaughan, Medical Pioneer. The publisher is University of Chester Press, the price £19.99.