Born in Berlin, Ursula fled to Scotland from the Nazi regime when she was eighteen. Before the war began she became a Guider in a central Glasgow company – but then the children were evacuated. After working in an army uniform factory she joined the ATS, serving for three years. She was discharged at the same time as her fiancé Frank Hugh Neville, and they married right away, in 1946. He had been known as Frank, but she preferred his middle name ‘Hugh’, so he changed. The couple came to Dundee two years later, and stayed there for the rest of their lives. They had one son, Peter. The first group in Dundee that the couple joined was ‘The International Friendship, formed to provide social contact between international students and their hosts. She helped to start the Muscular Dystrophy Group and the local Amnesty group.

When the Oxfam shop in Perth Road, possibly the first thrift shop in Scotland, opened in 1967/8 Ursula was soon there as a regular helper. In 1975 Dundee Women’s Aid opened a refuge, and Ursula was promptly enlisted as treasurer, a job she did for six years with remarkable calm given the somewhat chaotic funding. She was also on the Tayside Racial Equality Council for its first five years. And every Friday, though not a member of the Quakers, Ursula organised hunger lunches in the Friends’ Meeting House.