Catherine Heath was born 17 November 1924 in London to Dutch immigrants Samuel and Anna de Boer Hirsch. Her father, a Jew from Rotterdam, worked as an accountant, and her mother, a Lutheran from Friesland, had taken a university degree in economics. Heath was educated at a state school, Hendon County Grammar School, and she graduated with honors from St. Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1946. After graduation she lectured for two years at University College, Cardiff, Wales, and during 1949-1952 she taught on a part-time basis at both Oxford and Cambridge. In 1947 she married Dennis Frederick Heath, and in that year they moved to Cambridge. In addition to her teaching she worked briefly as a free-lance journalist. During 1952-1963 she raised her family, an adopted son and daughter (Anthony David and Anne Lindsay), before resuming teaching in a London suburb at Carshalton College of Further Education. "My students are very tactful...