SHE travelled the world, studied archaeology at Yale and even claimed she once performed an emergency tracheotomy while taking a doctor’s instructions over the phone.

Cassandra Barrington-Harness, wife, socialist and archaeologist, died on July 8, aged 45.

Her last words to her husband Stephen were: “I love you, good night.”

Talking to the Oxford Mail about his late wife, Mr Barrington-Harness recalled her extraordinary life.

Born in Brittany, France, on December 5, 1967, her parents wanted to call her Framboise (Raspberry), Cassandra Scarlett because of her red hair, but due to the French law at that time that only approved names could be used, her passport recorded her as Francoise Scarlett Dominique Petibout.

At age four her parents divorced, and her father, Jacque Petibout, was given custody of her.

He was a soldier in the French army before becoming a diplomat.

Together they travelled the world, Cassandra becoming fluent in German, Italian, English and French.

As a child she decided to become an archaeologist and by her teens was spending more time in museums than at school, so her teachers expected her to fail her baccalaureate.

However, her father promised her that if she passed he would buy her a plane ticket to the United States, and she duly passed.

She gained a bachelor’s degree in Archaeology and Anthropology at Yale, and then returned to France where she attained a degree in English at Bordeaux University.

She was an accomplished skier. She once recounted that when trapped in a ski lodge in America she performed an emergency tracheotomy while following a doctor’s directions over the phone.

She fell in love with Oxford while on holiday in the city in 1988, and then fell in love with her future husband, Stephen, in Christ Church Meadow while reading an Oxford prospectus.

Although she did not enrol at Oxford, she continued to study for a masters degree in Archaeology and Anthropology from Yale using Oxford University resources.

The couple lived in Oxford for two years, before moving to Thame for seven years and then spending four years in Scotland.

They lived for the last 12 years in Witney and were married in Maine, New England, on October 3, 2009.

She became a member of the Oxford University Archaeological Society and a regular at the Playhouse. She was also a prolific letter writer to local newspapers and a reader on the Witney Talking News.

She died less than three weeks after unexpectedly being diagnosed with cancer.

Mr Barrington-Harness said: “She died as she lived, with exceptional strength at the end to keep her dignity, thinking of others, saying ‘please make sure no one else has to die this way’.”

She also supported the campaign Dignity in Dying to allow terminally ill people a dignified end.

Her funeral takes place later this month.