On 6 November 1942 Rosemary Susan was born in Birmingham of Lucy and Trevor Pepper, and elder sibling to sister Jean. The family lived in the family home in St Bernard’s Road, Olton and Sue, as we know her, attended the Convent School – promptly leaving age 16.

Marrying her soul-mate John at Solihull Register Office 13 October 1973 the newlyweds moved to Bromsgrove to their new build house in Pennine Road before becoming a family in 1977 on the birth of daughter Jane and completing it in 1980 with son Paul.

Sue was modest, kind and generous, and would do anything for her family and friends but never liked to be the centre of attention. She was outgoing and liked nothing better than a good chat evidenced by her twice weekly, hour or more long, phone calls to her beloved sister Jean. She was hard working and set herself high standards in all the jobs she undertook at work and at home.

She achieved much success in her career starting as a Lab Technician at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. After being trained in statistics and computer programming she assisted Professor Arnott and his team in medical research projects. Sue is credited in a number of the resulting research papers published by the British Medical Journal.

It took Sue three buses every day to get to work at the QE from Olton until she was able to buy her first car in 1965, a Ford Anglia. She was certainly no petrolhead but Sue loved that car.

It was at this time that Sue and John first met in the Computer Room of the Birmingham University Medical School where John was a trainee programmer. Sue was a very striking figure with long blond hair, wearing a white lab coat, a mini skirt and a winning smile. John was smitten!

Following a career change she went on to become a Senior Programmer at the West Midlands Regional Health Authority where she led a team of programmers developing a donor recall system for the West Midlands Blood Transfusion Service. At the time the first computerised donor recall system in the country.

She also worked on an experimental project with the aim of developing a search facility that could extract information from NHS databases using plain English phrases and keywords. John long regrets that unfortunately a company called Google beat her to it, otherwise he and Sue might have been enjoying the billionaire life style!

When the children were small she gave up full time work and for a while and worked part time selling Usborne Books mostly to schools. She really enjoyed this as she loved books and talking to people was one of her great joys.

She later worked part time as a contractor doing systems support and programming for F International, later Xansa. Here she made a number of lifelong friends. In her work Sue became something of an expert in the use of Microsoft Excel and thus became the point of reference for family members for all things spreadsheet. Allegedly, operating a telephone help desk!
She retired in 2002.

When Sue and John first went out together Sue liked Herb Alpert and Mantovani but John would drag her along to Prog Rock concerts. She would complain of suffering from loss of hearing and Tinnitus for a week afterwards! She did enjoy them though as she was always up for the next one and Genesis became one of her favourite bands.

Sue was an avid reader, she had hundreds of books around the house, all of which she had read at least once. She was also very keen on, and good at, crosswords and Sudoku puzzles. Sue and John would compete on Sunday evenings to be the first to finish the Sunday Times crossword. There was usually only one winner, and it wasn’t John!

Sue loved cats. As a child she was not allowed a pet and in consequence as soon as she had her own home Sue and John got a cat from a rescue centre. The drive home was somewhat fraught as Sadie the cat meowed pitifully all the way and Sue sobbed in sympathy! But this was the start of an enduring affection for cats which seems to have been passed on to Jane and Paul who both now have cats of their own.

She was a keen gardener becoming quite knowledgeable and over a period of time created what is now known as our Zen Garden. Filled with trees, shrubs, climbers and pot plants a tranquil oasis in which to relax. It is very private and not overlooked. Just as Sue liked . She particularly enjoyed growing vegetables and had an allotment for many years. There was no tap at the allotment, but she was not afraid of hard work, so Sue would fill numerous large containers with water and load them all into the car. Having driven to the allotment she would then have to carry them, one by one, along an overgrown path from the car. A good example of her determination and fortitude.

After retirement she became interested in Genealogy and would spend hundreds of hours on her PC, using online tools, researching family ancestry and producing amazingly detailed family tree diagrams.

John was a keen motorcyclist but could never persuade Sue to ride pillion so he did the next best thing and bought a convertible sports car. He and Sue would regularly use the car, top down, for days out. They were members of the National Trust, courtesy of sister Jean who gifted them their first annual membership, and visited most of the properties within a fifty-mile radius and some further afield. Sue’s favourite was Croome Park which they visited many times enjoying walks around the extensive grounds.

About 18 months ago Sue suffered a stroke and her speech was very badly affected. She was helped to regain it by the Stroke Association who provided the services of a speech therapist described by Sue, with a twinkle in her eye, as ‘a very nice young man’ . Sue and John also attended some of the fortnightly support group meetings organised by the Stroke Association in Bromsgrove and were very grateful for all the help and support they received.

Sadly, following the stroke Sue’s health began to gradually deteriorate culminating at the end of July in a sudden collapse and an emergency admission to hospital. Sue showed all of her usual grit and determination to recover during her stay in hospital. But this time despite the outstanding level of care received at the Alex she finally succumbed with her family beside her.

One of the very many cards of sympathy received by the family said that Sue had been a wonderful wife and mother and that they were lucky to have had her. John, Jane and Paul know full well that they were incredibly lucky to have had her and, despite their huge loss, will cherish her memory for ever.