Lady Susan Abbott
Lady Susan Abbott (1939 – 2025)
Below are extracts from the eulogy at Susan’s funeral, written by her daughters – Lucinda, Victoria and Alexandra.
Lady Susan Abbott was in many respects a paradox, not always conforming or doing what was expected. Although she did not meet the archetype of these labels, she was a fighter and very definitely a survivor.
Susan was born in Jahore on the 31 January 1939. Her father, Dr JCP Grey, worked as a doctor in the Malayan medical services. She was evacuated to Perth, Australia just before the fall of Singapore in early 1942 and was on the last civilian ship out of the country with the ships in front and behind getting blown up. She survived a life as a refugee in Australia which was hard on the whole family, her father being a Prisoner of War in Singapore.
She returned to the UK in September 1945 and her parents bought Hop Gardens at Lower Beeding in the early 1950s. She was educated at St Mary’s Hall in Brighton and finished her education in Switzerland. She then spent a period of time in the Wrens which she did not enjoy. Her father had very traditional ideas about career choices, but in a fit of rebellion Susan enrolled in City and Guilds catering training in Worthing and built a successful career in hospitality.
These early experiences shaped her outlook and personality and provided her with the strength to overcome any challenging situation. This was evident as she fought TB and pneumonia as a child and overcame ovarian and breast cancer as an adult. As younger children this quiet resilience was very much present in our home-environment especially when our father, Peter, was away on his long deployments at sea. This strong- willed streak is something she passed on to all of her daughters.
Peter and Susan met at a 21st birthday party, which Peter had not really wanted to attend.
There were some raised eyebrows as Susan was a couple of years older than Peter, but they married at Lower Beeding church in 1965. Susan successfully navigated the life of a naval wife supporting Peter in his increasingly successful career. She had to cope with constantly moving home in the early years of her marriage and family life with the additional strain of Peter being away at sea. She also had to give up her career in catering which she always told us was more lucrative than the Navy at that point in their marriage.
The family moved to Scotland in1972, Bermuda in 1974 and to Fleet in 1976. There Susan created a loving family home, while Peter continued to be away. One of her daughters remembers preparations for the annual trip to Pembrokeshire where the Renault 4, complete with trailer and a huge green ice chest was packed with picnics and snacks for the journey, and with roast turkey and ham to save on cooking during the holiday period. Susan loved to entertain and during this period there were regular dinners and parties. Cookbooks would come out with annotated recipes that would allow for an industrial scale up of quantities to feed everyone. The backs of envelopes were used as to do lists and to define complex timelines to ensure all of the food was provided to Mum’s exacting standards. After this, followed more moves including a period in the USA.
In retirement, they moved back to the family home, Hop Gardens, in Lower Beeding. They spent many happy years there developing the house and the gardens. Susan and Peter had a very successful marriage and were happy to celebrate 50 years together, just before Peter died in 2015. Susan adored Peter and was bereft without him. She found the adjustment to widowhood difficult but she again demonstrated quiet resilience.
Susan made friends wherever she lived and these friendships were carried forward into later life. She really valued the advice, knowledge and good times that she shared with her friends. She found much joy, support and kinship, both when Peter was away and after he died. Susan was a wonderful mother to Lucinda, Victoria and Alexandra and they all remember the love and affection that she showed to them, as well as the knowledge and wisdom she passed on. Mum had a lot of talent in traditional skills like needlework, baking, making preserves and gardening. She was always busy doing things. She was a believer in a tidy kitchen and a tidy mind. Seasons were marked by marmalade- making in January to her secret award-winning recipe. Jam making happened in late summer along with chutney in the autumn. In November, she made Christmas cakes and puddings.
She liked sourcing game, pheasant, fish and lobsters from a secret network of suppliers, whose arrival at the door was marked by great whispering and handing over of cash. Pheasants were hung up in the garage and plucked before being turned into something wonderful with cream. Another carry over from her war upbringing was Mum’s level of frugal living. Nothing was wasted and we all remember the yearly exercise of saving wrapping paper after Christmas, which included careful cutting and ironing of the paper. We also had the same three Advent calendars which were recycled every year. She was ahead of her time.
Grandchildren started arriving in 2001 and Susan enjoyed being “Granny” to them all. All of the grandchildren remember the feeling of being cared for and looked after by Granny.
Freddie remembers being inspired by Granny’s attitude which was described in stories of her life and experiences from the many different places that she had lived. She also remembers the zero tolerance at Granny boot camp when beds had to be made and hair brushed. They learned how to use a knife properly and also the key lesson, that Granny’s way, was the right way.
Sue (as we knew her at Nuthurst church) and Peter came as ‘refugees’ from Lower Beeding. Their Christian life was important to them and they attended church services regularly. Sue’s cookery skills came into play at many a church event and were much valued.
Lady Susan Abbott had a life which was sometimes challenging, never boring, often amazing and filled with loving relationships with her husband, her children, her grandchildren and her friends. Despite some bumps in the road, she had the strength to survive and succeed.
Roy Davidson
Roy Davidson (1936-2026)
Since Dot died 6 years ago, I have been meeting Roy on most Fridays putting the world to rights, as well as talking to him on the phone. We had much in common. We were both born in 1936 – six weeks apart. We both travelled a lot, we were fellow churchgoers, and both of us were going slowly blind. The following is my tribute to him – a dear friend.
Roy was born in Aberdeen and spent his early years there. He has a surviving cousin in the north and another cousin who died recently; he was able to visit her in Jersey a few months ago. Otherwise, he had no family except through Dot, his beloved wife, whom he nursed devotedly through her last illness. Dot had a niece, Gillian, and two great nephews, all of whom Roy was extremely fond.
After attending St Lawrence’s College, Ramsgate, and the university of Cardiff, his whole career was in human resources (HR) in which he had a number of jobs, and where he met Dot at a conference. Roy’s highly successful career had two particularly important phases. The first was with Qantas where he enjoyed travelling 1st class around the world and which gave him a life-long passion for aviation. His second was with UBS, the parcel delivery service and it was probably due to him that all senior managers were required to don the uniform and deliver parcels themselves in the two days before Christmas.
Their Christian life was important to both Dot and Roy and they attended St Mary’s in Horsham, where Roy was church warden for over 20 years. Latterly they were faithful members of the churches in the parish of Nuthurst, getting involved in many different church activities. They sponsored two children through their education at Dr Graham’s Homes, near Darjeeling, which was founded by Scots Presbyterians in the last century to give a second chance to Calcutta slum children. I believe Roy’s mother taught there.
Roy had the happy knack of making friends and on the occasions when he lost his job through mergers etc he always had a friend recommending a job somewhere else, and he always got the job. This capacity for friendship led in recent years to many people in the parish willingly doing things for him; one neighbour, Rob Stanley, did all his administration and others his online shopping until Gillian took over these tasks fairly recently. Many people gave him lifts to an increasing number of medical appointments, to church, and to other events. Even the no.17 bus drivers, whom he knew by name, helped him by dropping him off at his house, and were always rewarded with a sweet.
Roy was lonely after Dot’s death and relied for companionship upon his much-loved cat, which sadly died only a couple of years later. He organised his life to a rigid timetable of early rising and early bed. He did all his own cooking as he had done for Dot in the later stages of her illness and nearly all his own housework. He spent a lot of time and energy keeping his house immaculate and only a few months ago had it refurbished and decorated. He was very proud of his garden, and was Sarah Russell’s first client 26 years ago, having lived at Bellmoor for over 50 years. He loved to sit by the garden pond and feed his fish. When he gave up mowing, he insisted that the helper who took over the state-of-the-art machine did the exact parallel stripes he was accustomed to.
Travel was one of his greatest interests and we met by chance on a cruise and discovered we were neighbours. Many of his chosen audio books were on travel. He enjoyed railway group holidays, often with his oldest friend, David, with whom he also went on weekend trips to interesting hotels. In more recent years he took to cruising, firstly with Dot and again in the last two years where he was always wonderfully looked after by Saga.
Thanks to a great nephew, he had a sophisticated electronic system to make phone calls and get information or classical music from Google. He spent a lot of time listening to the radio and to audio books, often getting through 12 hours of book in a couple of days. His other interests included his Probus Club, and an occasional excursion with them, and he also enjoyed the local History Society. He loved malt whisky but two years ago took to wine instead on medical advice. He enjoyed my red wine best, but always served white to me at his house and was too tactful to tell me this was because he was afraid of my spilling red wine on his new carpet. Towards the end, he became increasingly worried about his macular degeneration which left him with only peripheral vision. He was, I think, a little anxious about his final cruise. As usual his last words to me were “Goodbye dear friend”.
Robert Arbuthnott
