May Brenner on Upbringing
  May Brenner     Biography    
Recorded: 14 Jun 2005

Strict, conventional, what will the neighbors think and we were three daughters and for this I forever bless and thank my mother. My daughters are going to have an education. They don’t have to be boys to have an education. Education was her dream and her goal and something she never had. And we all three went to university. And quite a lot of people thought she was very peculiar, for all her being so conventional; but you don’t send daughters to university. And the excuse she made was it’s a good place to meet proper young men that you can marry. It was the only excuse she could give, but when I wanted to work and have a career, she was the one who supported me. Everybody else said you’re mad. He’ll work for you, get married. She always said, well you never know when you get married. Husbands can die, husbands can leave you. You get an education. Yeah, without an education I wouldn’t be able to talk to my husband at all.

May Brenner was married to Sydney Brenner from December 1952 until her death in January 2010. She was engaged in doing a Ph.D. in Psychology in London.