“Learning to receive more deeply, and with greater appreciation.”
Sue Allen, received into the Church at St Edmund’s in 2019, talks about her life and the path of faith that has led her here.
I was born in Horsham, Sussex on St. Peter and St. Paul’s day (29 June) 1946. This became particularly significant when I went to a Roman Catholic Convent boarding school – although my parents were nominally Church of England – because it was a holy day of obligation and we always had a picnic.
I had an older brother, Michael, born in 1944. Horsham was the home of my maternal Grandparents, and shortly after my birth we moved to live in Northampton where my father’s family lived. Early in 1949 we moved again to live at Rugby, about half an hour from Northampton by car.
In 1949, when I was three and a half, I was standing in the back of the car as small children could do in those days when there were no safety belts, and I managed to undo the safety lock, and – as my brother put it – I was there one moment and gone the next. It was pouring with rain and a bus was coming. Somebody unknown jumped off his bicycle, picked me up and threw me back into the car before I was run over. I had fairly serious injuries, having cracked the bones at the back of my head, and was in a coma and only able to go home after some time. 
This was the first of a series of unpleasant stays in hospital. A while later it was discovered that I had three kidneys not the usual two, and I had to go to a hospital in Coventry where the specialist was able to do the necessary investigations. Then my tonsils had to come out and so it went on, although at the time the incidents seemed well spaced enough to get over one before the next came around. These periods in hospital were frightening, as parents were not always allowed to visit. When they were it was usually only very briefly.
As well as being told to be very brave (again!), I remember my mother spending several bedtimes teaching me the Lord’s Prayer. I had trouble pronouncing the word ‘temptation’. The word registered because after the car accident I apparently said to my father, “Sorry, you told me not to do that” (touch the child’s car lock), and to learn about somebody who forgave everything was of great importance to me although I did not understand that at the time. I recall years of migraine headaches. I often wondered if teaching me to pray and instilling in me “It will all be all right in the end” was the best or worst thing my mother did. My childhood was so painful with all the hospital stays and investigations, and it took many hours of therapy for me to learn that we don’t always want the life we have been given, and it takes a long time to begin to learn to see all our lives and experiences as the gift of a loving heavenly Father.
Around this time my brother Michael Darby became a boarder at Rugby School. He was not allowed to walk down certain streets in the town, and certainly couldn’t meet up with his sister. I missed him a great deal. He subsequently became the Deputy Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum and must be one of the few people who moved from the V&A to having an office in the Natural History Museum next door. He has had a life-long interest in beetles – microscopic ones – his “full stops”, as his wife Elisabeth calls them. She is a programme designer and lecturer in Fine Arts (at Sothebys, and the latest book she has written is called ‘Re-issue, Re-Imagine and Re-Make’, published in 2020).
In 1957 when I was 11 years old my mother’s parents went to live in New Zealand. I realised only later how hard this must have been for her, especially as she was an only child. One day she started using American words like ‘swell’ and when I asked her why, she told me she had grown up in America. This was a huge surprise as she had never said her childhood had been spent in New York! When I was older she gave me two beautiful photographs of my great-grandparents (her maternal grandparents) 
as a result of which I have a great interest in genealogy. I discovered that mother went to America more than once. Her father was a tailor and worked for what became Burtons Men’s Outfitters, the ‘Threepenny Tailors.’ Later he made suits for the Governor General of New Zealand. Sadly, the families lost touch and it was left to my research to find out when and where my grandparents had died. Mother was also a seamstress and I had to stand on a table for ages while she sewed the hems of my clothes, most of which she made herself. Her smocking was exquisite!
My father’s work as managing director of a television rental company called Multi Broadcast meant that we moved again, to Reigate, and then to Princes Risborough near Aylesbury. These moves occasioned my going to boarding school near Reigate. I was fortunate and loved it, and had the honour of being head girl. The students were from many countries world-wide, and I enjoyed hearing about their cultures and lives. One of them had a father who owned a big hotel in Milan to which I was invited, but unfortunately never visited. We did have a good trip as a school party to Cologne which was my first experience of being ‘abroad’.
After school when I was about 17 I went to a college in High Wycombe where I was a member of the first cohort of an experimental course, called a Social Welfare Diploma, which involved obtaining qualifications in A levels, secretarial skills and learning about social welfare and administration. My parents moved again to Gidea Park near Romford, Essex and at that point I left college and joined a law firm as a legal clerk. It was at Gidea Park Tennis Club that I met my husband Roger. We were married on 6 September 1969 at Great Billing near Northampton (my parents had moved again) and we set up home at Navestock, near Brentwood.
Roger’s father was part of what is now called, ‘Allen Ford’ and he worked with his father in the Chrysler business at Collier Row. This business closed and his father retired, at which point Roger came to work in the same firm as me as an articled clerk, and he changed careers to be a solicitor. Once we had children I was a stay-at-home mother.
We have three children; Jonathan born 1972, Victoria 1974 and Nicholas 1977. Our son Jon is married to Manjit and lives in Leicester. Nicholas is also married, to Kathy, and has two daughters, Summer and Katie. They also live in Leicester (but that’s another story!). Vicky is not married but having spent three years in Japan, is now a partner with her father in Allens, Cadge & Gilbert, Solicitors. She lives at Ormsby St Michael but works at the Loddon Branch and another partner Teresa Utting is at the Halesworth Branch. Roger works primarily in Bungay.
We first came across Bungay in 1973 on a camping holiday at Sallows Farm near Halesworth and we went to the farm most years after that. In the summer of 1978 we came for our annual holiday and the children loved the farm and being out of doors in tents. It so happened that one by one they all got the mumps and when we took them to the doctor he said they were better camping than in stuffy bedrooms at home, so we stayed on. Then the heavens opened and it poured for two days! We still didn’t go home and in fact Roger went to the local firm of solicitors in Halesworth and asked Hugh Martinez if he wanted anybody to work with him. It so happened that he did, and by Christmas we had sold our home at Navestock and moved to the Old Rectory at Ilketshall St Margaret, near Bungay. Subsequently Roger set up his own practice in Bungay in 1984 and Hugh died some years later having asked Roger to take over the Halesworth firm. Also in 1984 my Mother died at our home when she was only 64. My father died in 2001 having lived with us for 17 years.
While we lived at Ilketshall we went to the village church regularly and undertook a course on Local Ministry. As a result of this Roger was ordained as a non-stipendiary priest at Bury St Edmunds Cathedral in 2002. My own faith was growing as a result of having attended several Retreats, and I became a Franciscan Tertiary with the Ipswich Group led by Bishop John Dennis. At this time I was studying at the UEA and obtained a Master’s degree in Popular Culture and another in Art History having first undertaken two undergraduate degrees. I also have qualifications with various other institutions including the Cambridge Theological Federation.
Going back a bit, as a solicitors’ clerk I had been responsible for the Divorce Department of the Firm and found this very difficult. In those days we sometimes had eight or nine divorce cases at the High Court in a morning and it was like a sausage machine, meeting the client and witnesses, and the barristers conducting the cases, and then in and out in ten minutes. People seemed to me not really to want to be divorced, but they often had little language other than that of blame and anger to think about it all. I joined the Marriage Guidance Council (later Relate) at this point and later did Person-Centred Counselling training with the Westminster Pastoral Foundation and also some Psychodynamic Counselling work.
Then began the most formative period of my faith because I started to go to the Convent of All Hallows at Ditchingham, having initially been invited to attend a Service by Elizabeth Jordan the Bungay doctor’s wife. At the Convent I was encouraged to accompany people attending retreats run by the Sisters. I also undertook the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises accompanied by Father David Spicer, the Warden of the Community. This is a year-long retreat in daily life when you see a Spiritual Director once a week. The Exercises are based on the thinking of Saint Ignatius of Loyola the founder of the Jesuits, and they involve formation in the Christian life around discernment of matters relating to desolation and consolation in one’s life. Pope Francis often refers to the Exercises in his books as he is a Jesuit and they are all required to undertake the Exercises during their novitiate. Following this in 2007 to 2010 I went to London to learn to accompany those wishing to do the Exercises and to learn about spiritual direction. The Sisters allowed me to use a room at the Convent to see people who wanted to talk about their faith or do the Exercises and I am very grateful to them. I now talk to people in a room at home and work most mornings. I have accompanied several folk who have found the Exercises a helpful way to grow in their relationship with God.
I had become an Oblate of the Community, and as an Oblate I undertook a placement working with Sister Violet in the Hospital at Ditchingham. After she retired I was there as lay Chaplain for ten years until its recent transfer of ownership. When the Community dispersed it was a very difficult time and I started to come to St. Edmund’s. The worship was almost the same as we had at the Convent (aside from profound theological issues like transubstantiation!) and I felt at home in the town after the loss of everything the Convent had meant to me. I was received into the Catholic Church on 14 June 2019, sponsored by Elaine Gaffney. Roger has been supportive all the way through, as I was when he sought ordination – I didn’t marry a clergyman! He used to come to the Convent with me, and when I first went to St Edmund’s he came with me.
That brings my story pretty much up to date. We moved from Ilketshall to Earsham Street, Bungay in 1978. Roger is a member of Bungay Town Trust and was Bungay Town Reeve a few years ago. He is also a Rotarian and I am a member of the associated Club of Inner Wheel. I am also Chair of Bungay Castle Trust.
Living as we do with the Covid-19 virus we engage in Zoom meetings and I am enjoying the parish discussion group and coffee morning Zoom meetings. I do not think things can or will return to what they were before. We have all been on another part of our journey and I feel smaller and humbled by it. I have been wondering if that’s where the meaning lies – in just learning to receive more deeply, and with greater appreciation of what we are given every day.
