Kathleen Bushnell née Lidbetter was born on 21 March 1920 in Croydon, Surrey. Her parents were Wallace Royle J. Lidbetter, a coalman in the locomotive department of Southern Railway, and his wife Mary née Tomkins. In 1939 Kathleen was living with her family in Stoats Nest Village, Coulsdon, a suburb of Croydon in Surrey, and working as a cinema usherette. She married Cecil Ivan Bushnell in 1940. From 1940 to 1943 she worked for Southern Railway as a booking clerk at Coulsdon North station. Her training took place at East Croydon station where she kept a hand-written notebook of the instructions. She died in 2005 in Brighton, Sussex.