A WELL-respected doctor who in her earlier career had practices in the Forest of Dean and Herefordshire has died, aged 95.

Dr Charlotte Jones, a Central European Jewish refugee who became Monmouth’s first female GP, is remembered by Lynn May, a friend of Dr Jones who edited the doctor’s self published memoirs My Life Remembered printed in February 2021 by Clarke Printing of Monmouth.

In the early years Charlotte’s practice extended beyond Monmouth to Usk, Abergavenny, Herefordshire and the Forest of Dean.

She also held clinics in Lydney, Usk and Pontypool.

Charlotte set up her own single handed practice in Monmouth in the early 1980s after an unsuccessful attempt to join the only existing surgery in the town.

All its doctors were men who were against employing women GPs.

Undaunted Charlotte and her second husband, Alun Jones mortgaged their home to buy the neighbouring bungalow and convert it into Dixton Surgery which she ran until she retired in 2000.

In the early years unable to afford a locum and undertaking all out of hours work herself, she was on duty 24 hours a day, six days a week.

As her practice grew she was finally able to appoint a partner, Dr Brian Harries, who succeeded her on her retirement.

She was thrilled when he administered her Covid injection last year, making her the first patient in Monmouth to receive the vaccination.

Born in Vienna in 1927 Charlotte was brought up in Czechoslovakia. Her father, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, died when she was seven.

In January 1939, months after Hitler annexed Czech Sudetenland, she and her mother sought refuge in London with a distant cousin.

Charlotte’s medical studies coincided with the birth of the NHS in 1948 and she attended the Royal Free Hospital Medical School for Women in London, one of few all female medical schools in the capital at that time.

She qualified as a doctor in 1954 and rose through the ranks to become a registrar in obstetrics at a maternity hospital in Walthamstow, East London.

After her marriage to her first husband and the birth of their four children she worked as a locum GP and at school, infant welfare and family planning clinics.

When her marriage failed Charlotte was left to bring up four children alone.

Her subsequent marriage to Alun, an occupational health physician who became a Lord Mayor of Monmouth, was a long and happy one until his death in 2005.

Charlotte enjoyed a full and active retirement which included foreign travel, walking, gardening, Bridge, membership of Monmouth u3a (University of the Third Age), creative writing and regular swimming.

Heart surgery at the age of 90 forced her to cut down but not entirely cut out her swimming until a fall at home when she was 92 broke her back - although not her spirit.

She is survived by two children, three stepchildren and four grandchildren.