Mary Frances Keefe (née Allen) was a “Liverpool girl” who had nursed a burning ambition to be a doctor from an early age. She was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School in Crosby, Liverpool. She struggled initially to gain a place at medical school and briefly tried osteopathy. However, her persistence and determination so impressed the dean of the Liverpool School of Medicine that she was finally accepted in 1947. She threw herself into student life and the activities of the medical students’ society. She …