Judith was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, the second child of Ronald. When the family left Tyneside for Hong Kong in 1932, Joc and Judith were taught at first by 'Kenny' [Nancy McKenna from Newcastle]. In Hong Kong she went to the Diocesan Girls School until in December 1940 with her mother and Christopher she sailed for Liverpool around Africa. The voyage was ended when SS Anchises was bombed in the Western Approaches. Thirty hours in an open lifeboat was traumatic until they were rescued by HMS Kingcup and landed in Glasgow.
In 1942 she went to Cheltenham Ladies College, where she was Senior Prefect (head girl) in her last year. She became a medical student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London in 1948. Qualifying in 1953, she specialised in paediatrics and returned to Hong Kong to work the second half of the 1950's amongst some of the poorest and most malnourished children of her father's diocese, establishing a clinic to help them and their parents. A year's work at the University of Chicago followed. The rest of her career she spent in London, latterly at The London Hospital, Whitechapel before becoming Consultant Paediatrician at St Helier Hospital, Carshalton.
In 1972 she married Peter Richardson, and, when he secured his consultant's post in General Medicine at Bishop's Stortford in 1972, they bought a house in Brewery Lane, Stansted. John and David were born in1973. David's cerebral palsy and related handicaps left him and the family with extra challenges. She did occasional locum jobs but her later involvement with the Twins and Multiple Births Association was more fulfilling and perfectly combined her professional and personal experiences.
She was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, but it was Peter's health which declined first, and he died in 1999. She and David moved to a bungalow on Cambridge Road. Her Parkinson's inexorably advanced and her last two-and-a-half years were spent in a nursing home.
Her ashes are buried with Peter's in St Mary's Churchyard, Stansted.

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