Miriam Stoppard

Miriam Stoppard, OBE (née Stern and subsequently Miriam Moore-Robinson, born 12 May 1937) is an English doctor, author, television presenter and advice columnist.

Miriam was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her parents were Orthodox Jews. Her father Sidney was a nurse and her mother Jenny worked for the Newcastle school dinners service.

As a girl, with a family of modest means, Stoppard was brought-up in a prefab on a large council housing estate. Her mother was a dressmaker who taught Miriam how to make her own clothing, and from an early age she bought remnants of cloth with her pocket-money. Up until her teens she fashioned her own designs complemented with cheap and improvised accessories.

As a teenager she attended school on a scholarship and was shy. Inspired by her father, she had early aspirations to become a doctor, a profession traditionally dominated by men. She had a very ordered mindset and worked very hard, establishing her own study timetables during the week but attending the local youth club at weekends where she enjoyed music, danced and played table tennis.

She attended the Central High School in Eskdale Terrace and trained as a nurse at the Newcastle General Hospital (Royal Free Medical School). She went on to study medicine at King's College, Durham (which became Newcastle University in 1963). After qualifying as a doctor she worked at the city's Royal Victoria Infirmary and specialised in dermatology as a senior registrar at Bristol Royal Infirmary. She then became a research director and then managing director in the pharmaceutical industry for Syntex.

...
Wikipedia