TRIBUTES have been paid to a woman who came to the UK as a Jewish refugee months before the outbreak of World War Two, and went on to become Monmouth's first female GP.

Dr Charlotte Jones, who fled Czechoslovakia with her mother in 1939, was 95 when she died.

Dr Jones set up her single-handed practice in Dixton Road, Monmouth, in the early 1980s after an unsuccessful attempt to join the existing surgery in the town.

Dr Jones and her second husband, Alun, 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 the practice extended beyond Monmouth to Usk, Abergavenny, Herefordshire and the Forest of Dean. She also held clinics in Lydney, Usk and Pontypool.

South Wales Argus: Dr Charlotte Jones, who has died aged 95, was the first female GP in Monmouth

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, making her the first patient in Monmouth to receive the vaccination.

Born in Vienna in 1927, Dr Jones was brought up in what was then 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.

Her 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 the 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.

After her marriage failed Dr Jones was left to bring up four children alone. Her subsequent marriage to Alun, an occupational health physician who became Mayor of Monmouth, was a long and happy one until his death in 2005.

Dr Jones enjoyed a full and active retirement which included foreign travel, walking, gardening, Bridge, membership of Monmouth u3a, 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.