THE woman who was instrumental in bringing the MRI scanner to Swindon has died.

Dr Barbara Clay was regarded as an inspiration, not just to her children, but to generations of medical students.

She was the first consultant radiologist of what is now the Breast Centre and treated thousands of women during her working life.

“She was quite an extraordinary woman,” said her son Michael. “Everyone knew her, everyone loved her. She did so much for people.”

Dr Clay died peacefully last week of acute myeloid leukaemia, aged 80, looked after during the final stages of her illness by a nurse she had trained many years earlier at Princess Margaret Hospital in Swindon.

“All she ever wanted to do was be a doctor. She thought she was going to be a nurse but her dad encouraged her to become a doctor,” said Michael.

In the 1950s it was more difficult for women to become doctors, but out of 900 applicants for student places at the Royal Free Hospital in London she was one of just 90 who succeeded.

She managed to combine her career with marriage and bringing up a family, coping even when her husband Ronald suffered a serious illness in his 50s.

Her work was never far from home. “We had X-rays all over the place,” said Michael, who is an associate professor in art at the California Lutheran University. He was allowed to use them as a guide for his artwork, but woe betide him if he got something wrong.

“We literally grew up in a house with a skeleton in the cupboard,” he said.

Dr Clay, whose married name was Pearce, was also a keen amateur photographer in her youth, photographing people on the outside before her work led her to photograph them on the inside.

“I’ve often thought I became an artist because of that,” said Michael. “She was hard to live up to. Having a mum like that made me work a hell of a lot harder.”

“ She was a really strong feminist without being strident or aggressive about it. She was a role model for so many people.”

As well as being instrumental in the campaign to have a CT scanner installed at the Princess Margaret Hospital, she was at the forefront of the breast cancer screening programme in Swindon.

She was also an associate dean at the University of Southampton.

The Breast Centre, where she was clinical director before her retirement in the late 1990s, was based at PMH for 10 years before it moved to the Great Western Hospital in 2002. During her time there she taught many students radiography and radiology.

Dr Clay leaves a husband, Ronald, sons Michael and James, and seven grandchildren. A funeral service is due to be held at Wroughton Parish Church on March 8 at 1pm.