My mother, Brenda Lintner, who has died aged 92, was a psychiatrist, a former political activist and a lover of opera and the arts.
Born in Birkenhead, an only child, to working-class parents, James Bird, a docker, and Eveline (nee Pye), a housewife, she taught herself to read before primary school and then passed the 11-plus and attended Wirral grammar school for girls. She became the first girl from her school to be accepted into medical school, and was one of only three women in a class of more than 100 medical students at Liverpool University. She supported her studies through a variety of factory jobs.
