Artist, nurse and teacher, brought up in Carshalton, Surrey, her parents Francis and Frieda Johnson Sandwith, authors and photojournalists. Noelle studied at Kingston upon Thames, Croydon and Heatherley’s Schools of Fine Art. She showed an ability to produce a quick likeness and while working in advertising her sketches of film stars were used to promote new films. A visit to Australia in 1950 introduced her to the island of Tonga, to which she returned to teach English, travelling around the Pacific. She was a descendant of William Marsden, founder of the Royal Free and Royal Marsden Hospitals and, after returning to England, trained as a nurse at the Royal Free, eventually becoming a staff nurse at St Mary’s Hospital; worked for a while in British Columbia, Canada; then as a health visitor in the London area until 1979.