Joan McFarlane obituary

On 12 April 1973 Joan McFarlane, a young mother of 28, arrived at Westminster hospital in London to help save my life. She underwent a procedure to harvest bone marrow and the next day, Friday the 13th, I became the first person in the world to survive a transplant of bone marrow from an unrelated donor. Bone marrow donation was in its infancy then, and agreeing to donate to a stranger was an act of immense courage and compassion.

Joan, who has died aged 74, was born in Dublin as one of eight children to William and Elizabeth Stowe. After attending Our Lady's school in Milltown, Dublin, she worked at Jacob's cracker factory in the city as a "cracker packer". She met Bill McFarlane, an RAF serviceman, at a sister's wedding, and they married in 1971. The couple moved to Cambridge, where Bill was stationed in the RAF, and Sharon, her first child, was born in 1972.