Ruth was born in 1937 and went to the Foundling Hospital School in Berkhamsted in 1942. She subsequently attended Watford Grammar School and Camden School for Girls, and trained as a nurse at University College Hospital. She later retrained and had a very fulfilling career as a health visitor. She has three daughters and lives in Suffolk.
As children we always played out this game of who our mothers were and they were always beautiful, important, they weren't-- they weren't ever ordinary, ordinary people. So, we all played the same game … And then slowly I realised that I didn't want to pursue it. That if you turn over stones you have to take responsibility for what you find underneath, don't you? Or you don't do it … Not because I've firmly shut a door that I'm afraid to go through. It's just one I-- I don't-- don't want to-- to pursue. I-- I've-- I've had contact with people who have traced birth parents, not necessarily Foundlings, and have had very mixed outcomes. It's not what perhaps I would've imagined as a child.”
