My grandmother, Sue Henry, who has died aged 96, was a strong, working-class woman for whom family was all-important. She also gave a loving start in life to a number of foster children.
She was born and brought up in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, one of six children of James Blair, a miner, and his wife, Janet (nee Storey). Times were extremely difficult and, to make matters worse, James broke his back working in the pit.
Sue went to Central school in the town and had passed her exams to go on to a secretarial college, but because of her father’s injury, she had to get a job. She began her working life in the Metal Box factory a few miles away in Heaton, making lids for bottles and jars.
One Easter, she met Bill Henry, a shipyard electrician, at a fair. They courted for two years, married in 1941 and moved into their first home, a small flat in Wallsend. Bill was in a reserved occupation during the second world war and they lived for brief periods in Middlesbrough and Carlisle before returning to her home town. Their first child, Pat, was born in 1943.
Sue’s brother, Jim, his wife, Dot, and their twin daughters came to live with them after the war, staying for the next four years. Sue’s younger sister, Minnie, and her two small children also moved in for a few months. Sue had always wanted a large family and decided then that she would like to foster children.
They moved to a bigger house and over the years provided a foster home for nine or 10 children. Nina was aged 10 when she arrived and stayed with them until she married.
Edward, Sue and Bill’s second child, was born in 1950 and their third, Lesley, in 1959. When Edward died suddenly at the age of 11 of kidney failure, the family was devastated.
Sue was loving and caring, a great homemaker and a wonderful cook. She also worked throughout her life and she and Bill managed to buy their own house by the time she was 33. When the children were young, she would work evening shifts at the factory while he looked after the children.
Bill died in 2012. Sue is survived by her daughters, Pat, Nina and Lesley, five grandchildren, Jason, Leanne, Stephanie, Kairen and me, and five great-grandchildren, Ross, Holly, Ben, Jude and Harry.
