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The attractive, blue-eyed mother of three children is the daughter of Richard and Kay Carruthers, well-known and greatly respected Lusaka doctors, who went out to Zambia in 1965 with their four children (two of whom, farmer/artist Helen Collett and geologist Hugh Carruthers are still in Zambia). Richard became head of the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, specialising in thoracic surgery and Kay, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, was probably best known for her work as a GP. ‘Both took solace from the land in latter years and took up farming cattle and growing fruit commercially,’ says Ann. Her father died in 1981, her mother in 1996. In 1983 Ann married Mal Leslie, an ebullient Australian businessman whom she met in the Lusaka freight and travel business when she worked for Big Game Safaris and he worked for Hill and Delamain. Today they live in Reading and Mal is co-director - with his erstwhile H and D colleague and active ZST committee member Brian McNulty - of Seawing Cargo in Egham. But Ann, who worked in travel and commerce in Zambia, and in Britain
devoted much of her time to Samantha, now 24, Russell and Mervyn,
19 and 17, changed tack 10 years ago. “While I was at home
with the children, I did the equivalent of ‘A’ levels
with the Open University and then got a job as a laboratory technician
at Reading Grammar School - I absolutely loved it.’ So she
enrolled at Reading University to take a four-year Honours degree
– a B. Ed specialising in Science – and graduated in
2000, aged 45. ‘Now I am going for a Masters,’ she exults,
loving the challenge and clearly following the bent of her gifted
parents. She teaches three days a week at Rupert House prep school
in Henley-on-Thames and spends as much spare time as she can muster
on training for her September marathon. She will tackle it with
the same gusto with which she approached the late burgeoning of
her career and it is likely that Ann – accompanied by daughter
Sam – will do the run in record time. If you would like to
sponsor her, please send a cheque made out to the Zambia Society
Trust, to
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