My mother, June Simms, who has died aged 92, was one of the first people to benefit from the newly created NHS in 1948, and among the first to give back, contributing as a nurse, theatre sister and midwife.

The only child of Priscilla (nee Goodacre) and Fred Ringe, a carpenter, June was born and brought up in Rugby. She was bought ballet lessons, a rare treat in their working-class household, as a distraction from the second world war she saw overhead, living near heavily bombed Coventry; her parents could not afford the surgery needed when poor teaching deformed her feet. The new NHS came to her rescue.