Cynthia was the elder child of Ralph and Joyce Chandler and grew up in Whitstable. She attended St Alphege Church of England School and then Simon Langton Grammar School for Girls in Canterbury. She studied Marine Zoology and Oceanography at Bangor in North Wales.
On graduation she worked in the Department of Cell Biology at Glasgow University travelling to Surrey to marry Robert just over 4 years after they had first met.
Cynthia joined the Medical Research Council at a laboratory specialising in neuro-psychiatry. She went on to gain her PhD in 1983 in the Biochemistry of Depression. She was joint author of 34 published papers. Over the years she developed her interest in music passing exams for: Piano, Theory, Flute, Saxophone & Clarinet and Recorder.
Cynthia & Robert moved to Sittingbourne in the late 1980s. Cynthia started teaching and later bought "Swade Music". There followed 30 plus very happy years.