In World War II, she joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry before switching to the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In Dublin for a race meeting in 1939, she met and soon married Irish fertiliser manufacturer and art collector Sir Basil Goulding and moved to Ireland. However, her husband moved to England to join the RAF, ending the war as a wing commander; meanwhile, she served as a second lieutenant in the British Army. After the war, the couple returned to Ireland, where Sir Basil and his family managed Goulding Chemicals.