Sushma Sharma

My mother, Sushma Sharma, was born Sushma Jhinghan on 17 September 1932 in Balawali, Bijnore, India, where her grandfather owned a glass factory. Her father was a chemist in a sugar factory. She was one of five siblings.

She married my father, Umesh Chandra Sharma, after she graduated from Amritsar Medical College. They came to the UK—initially to Aberystwyth—after a voyage from India with Devesh, their 2 year old son. At first Sushma worked in anaesthetics in Shrewsbury; she continued to do anaesthetic jobs for many years. They stayed in Edinburgh, Newcastle, and North Shields and had a daughter, Alka, in 1966 and a son, Rajesh, in 1968. Later they lived in Liverpool, Wallasey, and Leicester before my father …