This site is a tribute to Susie Ball. She is much loved and will always be remembered. Many thanks for any donation you may wish to give to the British Heart Foundation which was a particularly special charity to Susie as her son-in-law’s research work is funded by the BHF and this was very important to her, now even more so to us as she suffered from a heart condition whilst in intensive care. Many thanks.

The Life of Susie 

by Roddie
 
Susan Elizabeth was born on 5th December 1943 at Hill Farm, Drayton Bassett, near Lichfield. The second Daughter of Ken and Mary Granger. Her early life was spent on the farm riding her pony Tuppence and at school in Cheshire. Leaving school, she, like many others in those days, it was suggested that she do a secretarial course. This did not last long! Could you imagine Susie stuck in an office. No, she enlisted at Stafford Art School where her love for the Arts and ceramics was born. 

A chance meeting with a stewardess friend caught her imagination and she joined British European Airways in 1966. This is where I came in, but not as you might expect. We met at a 21st Birthday party in Kent just after I had graduated. Discussing what I was hoping to do, I mentioned that I might consider flying. This thought seemed to horrify her! 

On one of our short breaks in Lulworth in Dorset, my memory tells me that Susie proposed to me but maybe it was a joint effort. We frequently visited this part of Dorset throughout our life together. We were married in May 1969 in Drayton Bassett Church. The day is still a blur, but I remember Susie crying throughout the marriage ceremony and the Vicar having to help her say the words. To this day I still think that I married the Vicar that day!

We moved to Windsor and shortly after to Anns Cottage in Oakley Green, which is still our home. She was a good hockey and tennis player and it was at Windsor lawn tennis Club where we met many of our present day friends. Matthew and then Charlotte entered our lives. Susie returned to her pottery and became a teacher at Windsor College and also ran courses for the parents and friends at Braywood School our local primary school. She was a very proficient potter, much better than she thought. She was a founder member of West Forest Potters and displayed at many exhibitions as well as Open Days over the years.

The one thing we often fell out on was my love of cricket, always late back from matches when we were due out for dinner! However, she came with me on a number of cricket tours to South Africa and one to Australia, spending time in the sun and on the beach rather than watching the game. We did travel the world loving Antigua and Mauritius and Portugal and she came with me on many trips.
 
She followed me onto the golf course and, after my retirement, we spent many years enjoying playing in Portugal with friends.
Susie nursed me through many operations on my hips and spine and was always there helping me recuperate. This curtailed my golf, but she carried on being a member at Maidenhead Golf Club. Her love of ceramics and the arts educated me into that world as well. We did almost everything together and have been inseparable for nearly 55 years. We often used to say that we loved each other too much. She was an inspiring, loving Wife and Mother to Matthew and Charlotte and Grandmother to Tom, Ollie, Hannah and little Harri. She loved them all so much and was so proud of them all. She had an infectious smile and lively personality. I loved her so dearly. She has left an enormous hole in my life.

Memories of Mum

By Matthew & Charlotte

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to work out when Mum got old.
 
It dawned on me after a while that she hadn’t. 
 
In many ways she was still in the prime of her life. Playing golf. Going to Pilates. Gardening. Looking after the grandchildren …
… and the rest of the family. 
 
She always had an eye for fashion, with her scarves, big sunglasses, pastel shades and her trendy gold, silver and ‘animal print’ trainers. And her Espadrilles:- There always seemed to be a pair of these around and they were one of Mum’s ‘holiday essentials’, along with her sunhats and suncream.  
 
Mum and Dad were still going on regular holidays. They had been for as far back as I can remember. Charlotte and I constantly seemed to be being dropped off for a week or two with family friends like the ‘Bastows’ or the ‘Vines’ as they jetted off somewhere.  
 
It was apt that travel formed such a core part of Mum and Dad’s lives: From the first time they met, flying was something they had in common. Dad was starting out at flying school and eyeing up a career as a pilot when he met Mum, who was already a stewardess. This was back in the days when flying was a glamorous industry - and boy did they both make the most of it.   
 
Their travels together started in 1969 when they went to Ibiza for their Honeymoon. This was then followed by a list of countries that would make Michael Palin look like a ‘travel novice’. 
 
South Africa;   Antigua;   Mauritius;   Cyprus;   India;   Australia;   Hong Kong;   Singapore; Argentina;   Chilie;   the US;   St Lucia;   Kenya;   Egypt;   Malaysia;   China;   the Maldives;   Brazil;   Zimbabwe;   the UAE;   Bermuda 
…  and pretty much all of Europe  … including Mum and Dad’s beloved Portugal.   
 
Although Portugal initially started as a regular family holiday when Charlotte and I were growing up, it was Mum and Dad’s love of golf that cemented Portugal – and particularly Fairways in Quinta do Lago - in their hearts.  
 
Portugal became a regular golfing holiday for Mum and Dad and they’d go out there with the rowdy ‘golf lot’ at least once a year.  
 
Whilst these holidays meant so much to Mum and Dad, in more recent years, golf gave way again to family. Both Charlotte and I have many fond memories of holidays in Portugal, introducing Mum’s grandchildren, Tom, Ollie and Hannah - and more recently Harri - to the places that we’d grown to love over the years. There was less golf being played, but Portugal was still very much about going to Maria’s Bar or Izzy’s, or spending time in the freezing Villa pool – because Dad refused to pay the additional ‘fee’ to heat it.   
 
Nonetheless, Mum’s competitive streak remained.  She introduced Tom, Ollie and Hannah to crazy golf whilst in Portugal.  Mum even took Ollie for a round of golf on one of the Championship courses after he picked up the game. Charlotte and I grew up witnessing Mum’s competitive nature from a very young age. Holidays and family reunions at Cranebrook (the lovely house built by her parents within eyesight of Hill Farm in Staffordshire, where Mum had grown up), invariably resulted in a game of ‘Lawn Croquet’.   
 
Our young eyes - and ears – learnt so much watching Mum, her sister Jayne, and our older cousins competing against one another at Croquet.  The regular ‘bending and burning’ of the rules – and the odd kicking of someone’s ball into the flowerbed when no one was looking – seemed to be readily accepted.  
 
Indeed, such ‘sportsmanship’ was rarely commented on by Granny and Grandpa Granger  -  who were just as likely to be engaging in such activities.  …. That was, of course, unless it was one of their brightly coloured balls that had been sent hurtling off deep into the undergrowth.  
 
No wonder Mum had such a competitive spirit.   She was born into it.   It was in her blood.     
 
During our own childhood, that competitive streak also meant that Charlotte and I had to spend many long hours entertaining ourselves, along with other ‘abandoned’ children (often Simon and Nicky Bastow) at Windsor Lawn Tennis Club, whilst mum played game after game of tennis.   
 
One such long, hot, summer’s day, having drunk all the juice that Mum had left us with, I remember Charlotte and I were so thirsty that we had to resort to drinking the Tonic Water from the shopping in the car that was waiting to go home.   
 
As mentioned, tennis gave way to golf as Mum’s new love. Mum soon outgrew Datchet Golf Club, where she started, and she became a member of Maidenhead Golf Club for many years. Sadly, I cannot remember playing golf with Mum that often, but her mix of competitiveness and sense of fun gained her many friends at Maidenhead.   

Despite –  and possibly because of  - her occasional ‘colourful language’ when she sent a ball off on an unexpected trajectory, she was a popular member both on and off the course. Mum played many medlies and tournaments over the years … and she always seemed to surprise herself whenever she won or did well. 
 
There was, however, also a more relaxed side to Mum. Many know about her love of Pottery. Whist teaching at Dr Bernardo’s School in Wokingham she met with Princess Diana, who she had to show around. Teaching there, as well as at Windsor & Maidenhead College and at Langley College formed an important part of her life at various times. 
 
However, she was never happier than when she was pottering away at home; firstly on the kitchen table, and later in her own pottery when it was built. However, that competitive side to her nature remained; instead now as a drive to reach perfection in her work.   
 
This artistic side of Mum resulted in Ann’s Cottage, and her beloved garden, being decorated with many of her wares. Mum started off small, with things like soap-holders, gravy jugs and coffee mugs. However, as her talent grew, soon came Grand Vases, pedestal Bird Baths, Japanese lanterns, and even a 7-foot tree in the garden filled with pottery doves. There were even life-sized busts Mum made of my, Dad’s and Charlotte’s heads, although mine never went on show after an experiment using brown boot polish to colour it went horribly wrong.   
 
When Mum found something she liked making – and once she was satisfied by its quality - Mum would often, quite literally, become a ‘cottage industry’, turning out ‘piece after piece’.   Once the home had been filled, it was time to fill the homes of family and friends, before her wares started to spill out into Exhibitions and Galleries. For one summer, she even sold her Japanese lanterns at a local Garden Centre. Charlotte, Dad and I can remember many occasions helping mum wrap up her pots to sell them at Craft Exhibitions, such as in Henley or Wokingham, discussing what price to put on each. I think she never really had the confidence in her work that it deserved, and she’d often put prices on her work that seemed to us to be far too low.      
 
That turning out ‘again and again’ of things that Mum could do well, extended outside of the pottery. Many of you will have had Mum’s Coronation Chicken, her Lasagna, her Chocolate Mouse or her Caramel Oranges. Let’s not even mention the family Trifle.   
Whilst all were truly a delight, I remember as young children, Charlotte and I often pleading with Mum for something different as the menu had not changed for a while.    
 
It never took Mum long to find the next meal which would become the staple diet for the family for the next 2 or 3 months, … until that plea for change was voiced again. She always had her trusted Delia Smith Cook-Book, interleaved with hand-written recipes on scraps of paper that Mum had collected over the years. There was often a ‘Cheryl recipe’ somewhere or an ‘Alex masterpiece’ scribbled down that could be relied upon.   
 
However, there were the odd things that never really made it past family ‘quality control’, such as Mum’s home-made ice cream which one had to use a carving knife to cut through, or the ‘Angel Delight’ that she tried to pass-off as something of her own creation more than once.  
 
……..
I cannot reflect on mum’s life without mentioning the ‘Long Close collective’.   
This probably started out something more of a school gate ‘support group’ for mum as Dad was often away flying for days on end.  However, this ended up being an inseparable group of parents whose deep friendships and bonds have extended over 4 decades, ….long after most of the friendships of the schoolboys and schoolgirls who first brought these parents together sadly drifted as the years passed.      
 
….
As we, in turn, grew up and had children of our own, Mum became a devoted and much-loved grandmother. Her timeless energy and sense of fun – and no doubt no small part of her competitive nature – lives on in Tom, Ollie, Hannah and little Harri.   
We just hope that whatever gene was responsible for that ‘colourful language’ on the golf course may not have been passed on to the next generation.  
 
Mum was so many things to so many people.  However, reading all the cards and letters we’ve received, the two things that stood out were the constant references to Mum’s Smile and to her Sense of Humour.   
…..
This should be a celebration of a life lived to the max, a life that has left such a mark on so many people and in so many more ways than Mum could ever understand.    

You have left us with so much to be thankful for.