Flora Bridge was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist serving the Southend area. She was born in Rochdale in 1906, where her father, John Hargreaves, was a commercial traveller selling flannel and clothing. Her mother, Flora, was a teacher. There were three children, Richard, Agnes and Flora, who was the youngest. Not a strong child, she read avidly and did well at Harrogate Girls' School, from which she won a scholarship to study medicine at University College Hospital, one of the earliest women medical students. She qualified in 1929, collecting an array of prizes on her way. After several junior surgical posts, at the Hospital for Women in Leeds, Mile End and the Royal Cancer (now Marsden) Hospital, she passed the FRCS in 1931. It was at Mile End that she met Raymond Bridge, a New Zealander who had come to England to study for the FRCS. After a honeymoon in New Zealand they set up in general practice together in Chesterfield, where she gave birth to a son, Michael, and a daughter, Mary. At the outbreak of war Raymond joined the New Zealand Royal Army Medical Corps which took him away to North Africa and Europe. Flora moved to the recently built obstetric unit at Rochford General Hospital in Essex, as senior resident obstetrician. There she had a house in the grounds and brought up her two children. Her marriage did not survive the war. Raymond returned to general practice. Flora remained at Rochford, building up a career as a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist. There she helped to set up a school for pupil midwives and, backed by James Logan, then chief medical officer of health for Southend, and her colleague Miss Whapham, created 'flying squads' for home deliveries. Under her care quadruplets were born and survived, at a time when this was unusual. In their unit the maternal death rate fell far below the national average and they built up both a local and a national reputation. Over the years she became a close friend of James Logan and their families were brought up together. Forty assistants who worked in the unit passed the membership examination of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. She smoked a pipe and enjoyed dancing, walking and camping, drove classic sports cars, and after retirement took up water-colour painting. She died on 10 December 1997 after surgery for a recurrent facial squamous cell carcinoma.