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_{'The first day as a nurse gave me a kind of satisfaction that I'd never felt before '}

But then, in my early twenties, I met and married my husband, Carlos Criado-Perez, an Argentinian. I thought life from then on would be lived as the wife of an international businessman and mother to a growing brood.

For three decades that was exactly how it played out. From Spain to Brazil and Portugal to Taiwan, I accompanied Carlos as he set up Makro, the Dutch supermarket giant, across the globe. In doing so I joined that elite band of corporate wives who relocate their families every few years to accommodate the careers of their ambitious and successful husbands.

In fact, for me, this was as fulfilling as a career in itself. I developed the strength and confidence to handle any situation; even landing in Brazil with two small children, one suitcase and no furniture just before Christmas.

Nothing fazed me. Until the day, almost 10 years ago now, that my husband took me out to dinner and told me he wanted a divorce in order to start a relationship with another woman.

I was devastated. I suffered mental anguish, physical sickness and such severe anxiety that I eventually needed professional help.

After long and terrible months of hopelessness, I finally decided to retry the only thing that I'd ever felt had rivalled being a wife and mother – nursing.

I took a post in A & E at the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham, and there was introduced to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) by an intensive care doctor who suggested I study for a diploma in tropical medicine.

I really didn't think I would go through with it. I just put one foot in front of another and off I went. I got a tremendous amount of satisfaction out of doing the course, but when the lecturers asked people to put their hands up if they intended using it in a developing country, I didn't.

I decided to apply for an interview with MSF anyway, on a whim, and was thrilled when I was given a place on their books.

Before long, I was asked to go to CAR. The night before my flight left I was very fearful. Apparently others have turned back from as late as the departure lounge, but I went ahead.

I spent three weeks in CAR running mobile clinics. We lived in little thatched huts with a bucket shower. I remember it well, because since then I have washed in large dishes, streams and dirty, cold rivers. There was also a safe room where I could sleep if things got rough – I have a very clear memory of learning the French word for gunfire, tirer.

Despite the tough conditions, the first day I spent working as a nurse gave me a kind of satisfaction that I'd never felt.

For the first time in years I wasn't someone's mother or someone's wife. I was me; just Ali. My own person. After my divorce I was always worried about going to dinner parties alone. I worried that I didn't have enough to say for myself. When I was married I had begun to feel like I was only part of a person.

I have since been on 12 missions for MSF, and now regard myself as fully committed to this extraordinary organisation. There have been very difficult times, but the outcomes are so rewarding. My greatest achievement so far was helping in Nigeria a few years ago. A mining organisation had dug up lead instead of the intended gold and the villagers were covered in a thick shroud of lead dust. Some children had absorbed 700 times the amount that would normally lead to an emergency hospital admission in the UK. An American company donated drugs to absorb the lead and our MSF team must have saved countless lives by distributing them. That, I will never forget.

My ex-husband thinks I am being selfish because I am a mother, but I would never have chosen this life over motherhood when the children were young. What I wanted to be was a wife and mother first and foremost. But I have felt moments of immense happiness because of my work and I don't think I could go back.

I spend as much time with my children as I can, and try to fit work around important events in their lives – I turned down assignments when Caroline sat her finals at Oxford and managed to organise Nicholas's wedding just ahead of my most recent departure to CAR.

The boys are proud of me but I know they worry. My daughter also worries but I feel she has a strong sense of why I do this. She is like me and will get behind a cause.

I can't tell them it's not dangerous, however. I was called back to England from my first trip to CAR when MSF felt my French needed some work: terrifyingly, I had been held at gunpoint at a roadblock and they needed to know my French was good enough in case it happened again.

Another time, when aid agencies were rescuing survivors of the terrible violence in Misrata, Libya, in 2011, I found myself leading a team of nurses on a ferry that was carrying the injured to Tunisia for treatment. At that point, I felt the need to write to my children telling them how much I loved them – I had an enormous fear that I might not return.

But I did come home, and have no regrets. I know that the children believe this is who I am. They have even said that I have come back to them as the mother they originally knew when they were young because of my work.

Recently, I reread a letter written to me in South Africa by my late father, when I first told him about how much I was enjoying nursing.

"This is wonderful news from every point of view," he wrote. "You are moral, self-disciplined and determined. Mind your halo!"

He knew I had it in me more than I did myself.

*Interview by Linda Duberly