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Sue Jessett goes to uni at 68
11 Plays3 months ago
Meet Sue, a pint-sized powerhouse who learned to use her North London working class background, neurodiversity and gut instinct to overcome those who underestimated her.
Follow her story through 1950s Camden, leaving school without qualifications and her success as a mature student.
Her career saw her supporting the most vulnerable in women's refuges and inner London schools. She retired after burnout and recovered by finding a passion for creativity. She returned to university at 68 to study art and is now an accomplished weaver.
She explains the importance of vulnerability and feeling the fear but doing it anyway. I take a lot of heart from her words and I hope you do too.
Music: Morning Span provided by Mobygratis #mobygratis
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Transcript
Sue's Early Life and Educational Struggles
00:00:00
Speaker
Meet Sue, a pint-sized powerhouse who learned to use her background, neurodiversity and gut instinct to overcome those who underestimated her. Her story takes us from a tight-knit community in 1950s Camden on the verge of gentrification to serving London's frontline, supporting vulnerable women in refuges and challenging children at school in the nineteen eighty s She left education without qualifications and used her burning anger of being written off at school due to undiagnosed dyslexia to fight her way to uni in her 30s.
00:00:34
Speaker
In her 50s she was burnt out after advocating relentlessly for vulnerable people in the face of dwindling resource. In her second act, she recovered by developing a love of creativity.
00:00:47
Speaker
She returned to uni at 68 to study art and now she is bringing her narrative to life through woven textiles which drip with emotion and bring the rich threads of her experience as a natural nurturer together.
00:01:00
Speaker
Welcome to you Sue and thank you for joining me today. i know you grew up in North London. It'd be really interesting as someone who also spent quite a long time living in North London.
00:01:12
Speaker
about what the area of Camden was like in the 1950s and how it was changing during your childhood. I mean, I grew up in the
Living in Camden: Between Two Worlds
00:01:21
Speaker
1950s. That's where I was born, North London girl.
00:01:24
Speaker
And we lived in a square called Charcot Square, which is a very well-known square now in... northwest London but back then it was very much working class in terms of its residents and in these beautiful houses you know that were three four stories high and most of those places were rented out as rooms and we actually did live in three rooms with the shared toilet and bathroom. Gradually over time it started to change I think with property prices and these houses were being snapped up by people that were in kind of professional media type jobs.
00:02:04
Speaker
you know, very middle class. And slowly, some of the families, like my family, remained in Charcot Square, but a lot of them moved elsewhere. So I kind of lived in two different kind of universes, really, in terms of class.
00:02:19
Speaker
And one of the residences in Charcot Square was Joan Bakewell. She was already In the media, her husband was a ah top producer.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I was exposed to different kinds of cultures even. I was like a sponge soaking it all up. I love that you said that you were like a sponge and you were just absorbing everything that was going on around you.
00:02:45
Speaker
But we've talked together about school and education, and I know it wasn't the case where you felt able to absorb in that environment. Can you share a little bit about what school was like for you when you were growing up? um In a word, pretty horrendous, actually.
00:03:01
Speaker
i didn't understand anything that was going on around me. And I always used to try and try and pretend to my parents that I was sick. And that would go on for many years.
00:03:11
Speaker
My parents was actually told that I was retarded. We've all pulled the sicky one on our parents. What did your parents say about that? Did they pressure you to go to
School Challenges and Motivation to Succeed
00:03:20
Speaker
school? In the beginning, they kind of went with me until they realised there was nothing wrong with me. And then they were like, no, you are going to school.
00:03:29
Speaker
I'd cry all the way to school. cry in school. I just... found it really daunting because the way my brain works is very different in different environments.
00:03:43
Speaker
It's quite shocking to know that people use words like retarded to describe someone's difficulty at school. Were you aware that you were different? I did know I was different. I did feel different.
00:03:56
Speaker
I didn't know why, but I did feel that and I felt like a bit of an odd bod a bit of an outcast almost and that was quite difficult because I've always had a hunger for knowledge and I think that's kind of the root of why I did have a hunger for knowledge because at the time when we we're supposed to be receiving it I wasn't actually getting it at all when people are discussing you how did it affect you did it affect how you felt about yourself at school Well, it it did affect me because I was pulled out of main lessons and put in what they called a redeeming class.
00:04:32
Speaker
And kids would make fun of you. They would just say, oh, you know, dance, where's your dance hat? And to hear the word retarded, didn't really know what it meant, but I knew it wasn't a good word. Yeah, I felt like nothing really. And it made me very angry.
00:04:48
Speaker
I had this desire to prove them wrong. I never believed ever that I was stupid. Okay. In order to survive being unhappy in school, what what that does, it enables you to problem solve because you're ducking and diving. Like, when your name is being called out to stand up and read...
00:05:08
Speaker
And I couldn't read. The fear of that was awful. I could feel it physically. I'd feel absolutely sick. But then I would work out very quickly, well, if i go to the toilet just before my surname's going to be called out to stand up or to say, well, I need to go and see the medical nurse. I feel a bit sick. I would ask lots of questions to try and fill that time up before it got to my name.
00:05:33
Speaker
That sounds like a super smart way of handling a difficult situation. But when you left school, did you do exams or have any qualifications? No, I left school with absolutely zilch.
00:05:46
Speaker
I could read, but I couldn't spell. And I could not structure sentences at all. I couldn't follow instructions. Very sort clumsy. I was always dropping things. I was always feeling like ah you know I had about 10 pair of hands when I was doing anything.
00:06:04
Speaker
So what happened next? What age did you leave school and did you go into work? Well, I left school at 14 and a half. No surprise, really, to anyone. I don't think Emily. I was a serial truanter and was often get picked up by the school ball people and march back to school.
00:06:22
Speaker
And I did this for most of my secondary school years, from the first year to the third year. So I would go to my friends' secondary schools, put on their spare uniforms and go and spend the day with them in their classes. Well, that's something we obviously have in common,
00:06:39
Speaker
I also dressed up in another school's uniform and used to pop over there. So you left school and what happened to you
First Job and Exposure to Creativity
00:06:48
Speaker
next? I went to work and my first job was in training to be a tenefilist in Faridon for an outfit that was selling boxes and cases for jewellery shops.
00:07:00
Speaker
I worked there for a year. I should have the only one good thing... I did learn to do was to copy type. That gave me employment. And I ended up just over 15 working in Dean Street for architects.
00:07:17
Speaker
And that, I would say, it was the first place at that age where I was like then exposed to creativity. And I loved it there. That was a wonderful job.
00:07:28
Speaker
So you were working in Dean Street, you were in in the heart of Soho. And then how did you meet the man of your life? I met Alan at a party, but first of all, he had spotted me walking in the York and Albany that was a pub at the top of Parkway.
00:07:44
Speaker
And um I think I actually made the move on him and asked him, did he fancy walking me home? I was quite brave in doing the things that I wanted to do.
00:07:57
Speaker
You know, that I did feel the fear and do it anyway. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway reminds me of when you told me that after raising your family... You saw an advert in a newspaper for an evening class and the ad asked a big philosophical question that made you want to go along. Yeah, I met Alan.
00:08:17
Speaker
We have three children. When my daughter got to 15, I thought, this is not enough. I remember the advert saying something along the lines, do you wonder why society is the way it is?
00:08:29
Speaker
Do you question why people differently? differently and I thought that's the bit of me that is right there and that was the bit that drew me in I thought well I'm going to apply so off I went had an interview got offered ah a place and I was there for a couple of years and I learned everything that I didn't learn in school English literature I learnt feminist studies.
00:08:54
Speaker
We did history. We did politics. And it was like I had been reborn. The power that I felt, my hunger for knowledge was actually being fed.
00:09:05
Speaker
And they must have seen something in you. They did. They saw my potential. I think Chris Jude, she did see potential in me. And it was her encouragement that wanted me to go on to university and do social science degree, joint with my...
University and Dyslexia Diagnosis
00:09:21
Speaker
Dipsworth of Social Work which was four years full time in the University of North London there was a lot of setbacks you know because I wasn't diagnosed at that time but they arranged for me to have a diagnostic stem translated that I had Dyslexia and I also had problems with short-term memory with in in my auto, in my mobility. that it It was a lot of things that affected.
00:09:49
Speaker
And so that came as quite a shock, although it kind of gave me the explanation to why my mind works very differently from other people. And maybe there was some kind of validation there that finally you understand a little bit about yourself.
00:10:05
Speaker
But do you think that is almost like some miracle lucky star that that's the place you ended up? That support was there to help you through those four years. Do you imagine what that would have been like without that support?
00:10:19
Speaker
Without that support, I don't think I would have survived it. There's two things that's really important to mention. The unit, for sure, because it it kind of enabled me to get to where needed to be.
00:10:32
Speaker
But It was my family as well. it was It was Alan. It was my husband that was a sole supporter. And that is really important because one of the things they tell you as a mature student in the interview is that if you do accept a place, very often not, it can really end partnerships, marriages. It wasn't an uncommon thing.
00:10:57
Speaker
Alan kind of stepped up to that plate. He would come home and start cooking dinners. I think this is where the switches started to happen. And having a modern day husband like helped, obviously, with that.
00:11:10
Speaker
do you Did you have a plan when you went into university? Like, I'm going to do the four years and then i'm going to
Career in Social Work and Advocacy
00:11:15
Speaker
do X? No. Do you know what, Emily? Nothing in my life has ever had a plan to it.
00:11:21
Speaker
Things come up and I'm able to go, oh, that sounds good, or I'd like to know a bit more about that. And it kind of unfolds in that way. So when you left uni, how did you get your first role?
00:11:35
Speaker
When you're in uni, you have placements. So I had a flavour, really, of a career, what I might like to go into. I knew I wanted to work with girls and I knew I wanted to work in some form of education to be able to advocate for kids that kind of were like like me, that were dropping out and not really achieving anything.
00:11:57
Speaker
I didn't know that I was going to end up working in in women's refuges, for example. It's the fact that I had a placement with Islington's Women's Aid. After I'd qualified, they'd offered me a position there as a refuge worker. The refuge work, that was quite a new provision, wasn't it, for women? Well, it started in Chiswick Refuge Movement.
00:12:18
Speaker
I can't remember her name. Irm Pisley, think I've said her name right. She had a house with many bedrooms and she opened it up to women that were escaping domestic violence.
00:12:29
Speaker
And then other houses started to pop up in different areas. I know down in um Margate at the Turner Contemporary, they've got Steve McQueen's Resistance exhibition at the moment.
00:12:39
Speaker
Motos from Chiswick are there. and How did you feel when you saw those? When I saw those images, they did bring back a wave of emotions, actually, because what I saw was how I remembered it.
00:12:53
Speaker
It's just... incredible that what can happen to you and how you can come through the other side of that and I think that is about the support of women supporting women in those situations as well and helping people to rebuild their lives. And also, i was always looking for potential. What do they love to do?
00:13:14
Speaker
What can they do? How can we together work with them to get from A to B? And what I found as a refuge worker is that I would get a lot of women back into education.
00:13:27
Speaker
So after Chiswick, I know that you went back into the education system and you were really advocating for kids on the front line at a time of immense pressure.
00:13:39
Speaker
Social change, Section 28, the AIDS crisis, gang recruitment. Tell me a little bit about your experience there and what you were trying to do with these vulnerable kids. so I worked in Highbury at that time and I was in a really urban tough secondary school.
00:13:58
Speaker
And it was a very scary time with the gangs. These kids at 15, 13 even, they were dealers and they were conducting business yeah on school premises in playgrounds. So the way you work is multidisciplinary. because you're working with health visitors, you're working with the police, you're working with hospitals, with psychiatry, you're working with drug addiction units.
00:14:23
Speaker
and All of you are working together and coming up with ideas on trying to address this social problem. The only thing that you could do is talk with kids and get their voice out, let them express what they needed to say And I was full-time based in secondary schools and I worked with like the English department that did a lot of drama.
00:14:48
Speaker
So things could get discussed, of scenarios to give these kids that they wasn't making wrong choices. What was it like for you, someone who had gone through school, no qualifications, gone to university later in life, from a working class background from North London, going into these really quite high pressure meetings?
00:15:10
Speaker
How did they? For me, it was about they had judged me. And what they didn't know about me was that I learned to speak their language, even with my accent.
00:15:21
Speaker
And I used to really have to do my homework because you need to be ready to come back because it doesn't affect you directly, but it will affect that young person that you're trying to support.
00:15:36
Speaker
I was only interested in getting children their education and not getting thrown out of school. Sent to Simbins, as though they were called then.
00:15:47
Speaker
I hope you wasn't in one, Emily. But how did you, how did they respond to you speaking their language? Oh my God, it was like, I'll give you in a scenario what happened was that I went to a domestic violence forum where the mayor was coming and all these people were turning up.
00:16:07
Speaker
And the the question was, well, why do women stay in these situations? And I walked into this room and, oh, my name is Sue Jesser. And you are. And that's what I would say. And you are.
00:16:18
Speaker
Because the way they were with me was already dismissive. It's a bit like an ace card, really. They don't see you coming. And there is a superpower within that. And the superpower is I very rarely did not get the results I needed for my family's I was a very good social worker because I knew the policies.
00:16:43
Speaker
I knew the social work intervention around Blown them into dust. Blown them into dust. And in the end, in Islington, my name was known Islington as, of you know, go to Sue Jessett. She will get that for you. She will come through.
00:17:00
Speaker
But what they heard is that I get results. And I don't give up. I'm like a dog with the bone. The real sort of pivotal moment here is exactly working class women returning back to education after having their family, being in these infrastructures where these decisions are being made about working class kids who are vulnerable and being able to speak the language of the person you're advocating.
00:17:24
Speaker
plus speak the language of the people who are making the decisions about that child. Yeah, 100%. I mean, you've you've expressed that in a nutshell. a lot of people, for different reasons, as we know today, are underestimated and undervalued, and we've definitely gone backwards.
00:17:41
Speaker
One example comes to mind is, at the moment... Our local governments are talking about mentoring. Well, we had that back in the 90s. We had mentoring for kids that had absent fathers, for them to act as role models. Problem is, the governments change over. we went to Tory government and they pulled the plug on all the resources and that all went out the window overnight. And I can remember feeling really concerned about all them kids, what's going to happen
Burnout and Transition to Textiles
00:18:08
Speaker
now?
00:18:08
Speaker
you were at that coalface for some time. That resourcing, dwindling, how did that leave you at the end of it all? Completely burnt out, completely feeling.
00:18:19
Speaker
What is the point? I always said, the minute I feel I cannot do my job, that is the day that I will leave and walk from this profession. Because if you don't, Emily, you become a dangerous worker, actually.
00:18:34
Speaker
And that's what happened. I remember doing a home visit. It was a very difficult case. I'd been with it for a few years and so ah thought I can't go through the door. And I turned around and I got on a train and I went home.
00:18:48
Speaker
Did you ever think you had reached the point of burnout? Burnout in car protection is in it three years, five years if you'll if you're lucky. I lasted much longer than that. First of all in refuge, I was there for five, six years and then ten years in with Islington.
00:19:07
Speaker
And it was no wonder I was burnt out, but didn't regret it. It was my time. it it leaves you feeling, you know, distaste in your mouth, really, I suppose, because it's not the way anybody I don't think wants to go out.
00:19:22
Speaker
It's almost talked about if you reach burnout, there's no coming back. You're out of the game for ages. How did you come to terms with burnout and recover from it? I was relieved that I didn't have didn't have that Sunday evening feeling when my stomach start turning off. it Oh, I've got to go work tomorrow morning.
00:19:38
Speaker
That was one good thing and I think I took a little bit of time for myself and then realised that burnout wasn't necessarily a bad thing. This would be a new journey for me, a new chapter in my life.
00:19:52
Speaker
That journey took me into textiles and it was a friend that came round to my house that said, said, I want you to meet this this woman called Yvonne, she's amazing.
00:20:04
Speaker
And she came and she said to me, you're not a painter, you're textiler. She said, look at your home, all the layers and all this, that. And she said, do you find that you you move things around a lot? And i said, all the time. She said, yeah, that's because you're trying to be creative. You're such a multi-layered person. Your textiles are really intricate weaves.
00:20:24
Speaker
And trying to put that on paper, i feel, is almost your expression of the burnout and the journey you've been through. You've been wrapping these kids, these vulnerable women in the refuge, in loads of cotton wool layers to protect them and free them out so they can go into the world and be free and independent.
00:20:42
Speaker
Yeah, there's a real powerful pull for me there. And that pull gives you the courage to want more push forward and that's what I did and I ended up I did four years with Yvonne one day a month passion for textiles and I learned all different techniques and then I went on to do different kinds of processes with Cass Holmes been to many of her workshops I've had very good teachers Margot Selby Studios moved from London the same time as we moved here so i have done many many weaving courses
00:21:17
Speaker
with Margot's studio and her team and they've taught me to weave. That led me to purchasing my own loom and continuing to do that outside of workshops.
00:21:29
Speaker
That kind of desire to keep learning How did it form in your mind that you may return to university? I had such a rocky start that everything has always presented itself.
00:21:42
Speaker
So from being a mature student at 33, the first time around, doing social science in my DIPs work, and then having a career in social work, from them then retiring, and then from then...
00:21:54
Speaker
Doing these textile courses, I did the foundation for textiles and I did some work with that. I ended up going back into university at 68 to do textiles and learn about processes.
00:22:10
Speaker
Were you, I'm going to be the only mature student there? Yeah, I can remember going back to when I was a mature student the first time around at 33. I can remember sitting in a
Returning to University at 68
00:22:22
Speaker
political... lecture and I just thought what on earth it was like Greek I didn't understand any of I had to learn the language and had to learn meaning behind it before I could make head or tail.
00:22:35
Speaker
But I stuck with it. How did you get the confidence to decide you were ready to go back to university? What it was, I went to an exhibition, and then I came across Vicky. She said, you need to look at this course, you need to investigate. And I looked at it, and I thought, that's...
00:22:54
Speaker
This all looks very interesting So I said to Alan at the time You know I'm going to book an open day Will you come with And we walk round And we take a look And he came along with me As moral support really And oh my god I walked into the studios And I was like Yeah This is where I need to be Was it like being around young people And how did that Well I kind of didn't know how that was going to sit What was I going to have in common With 19 year olds What were they going to have in common with me I did have to put my big brave pants on, you know, when I went to register and meet everyone. And then I've always been able to relate. People have always been able to relate with me as well.
00:23:35
Speaker
I'm almost like a magnet sometimes. People will gravitate to me. And that was no different with these young people. And they turned out to be the most wonderful humans ever.
00:23:46
Speaker
It was a different kind of competitiveness. People wanted to share and there was no agenda. It was healthy. You know, we're both part of the profanity embroidery group. and We are. And range mid-40s to, you know, the mid-70s. And I find the interactions we have there, the shared life experiences and learning from More mature women, it's so difficult to do that now in our social bubbles. We malign people with that ability to find that common ground. and we Very much so. You know, you come with the curiosity, so you come with some shared experience and you come with your creativity. and
00:24:26
Speaker
And if you've got those things in common, that's a starting ground really for any conversations that follow after that really and two-way support that you that you give each other. but Every five weeks you had to have something made. There was a turnaround, a deadline.
00:24:42
Speaker
It was such a shared experience as well and I still keep in contact with a couple of those young people today. I'm following them, you know, what they're doing. They're going, they're all qualifying this year which is amazing. I'm like proud auntie.
00:24:58
Speaker
I a really successful graduation show and that led to an exhibition with your own daughter Sarah. It did. I did a collaboration with Sarah called The Fragile Lines Between Flying and Falling.
00:25:13
Speaker
Sarah is a very talented graphite drawer. Her drawings are amazing. They almost look like photographs. We didn't know how this was going to work, you know, me doing the textiles. But we found the narrative. We found a good concept.
00:25:26
Speaker
And the concept was about how do you translate your emotions through a piece of textile? I think in this exhibition, so and I together managed to actually do that. remember standing in front of a piece of your embroidered work and really ah crying quite a lot unexpectedly. We had a lot of tears. There was a lot of visitors that cried. It was a collaboration between a mother and daughter as well.
00:25:52
Speaker
So some of the work reflected that. We did do it on a very analytical type of... exhibition really because we wanted people to be able to talk about how we process the work.
00:26:05
Speaker
We had some really good feedback. A lot of people felt it, you know, it helped with a lot of mental health the way it was done. It was really clear of your background. in social work. It was nurturing. It was really exploring the relationships that we have between our family lines in a way that you couldn't but help reflect it back to your own experience. I think that's why it was so overwhelming in parts because you're just ah confronted with something you try not to think about on the day-to-day.
00:26:35
Speaker
Processing burnout, part of my creativity plays a big part in that because My final major piece, it was called Unraveling and
Art as a Reflection of Life Experiences
00:26:46
Speaker
Mending. And throughout my working life and career and being a mother, being a grandmother, being a wife, emotions do weave in and out of our lives. You know, one minute...
00:26:58
Speaker
We feel like we're breaking. We may be fraying around the edges. We may be feeling like we're free-falling. And then we can knit together again and then we heal through that mending together. There's something about the actual action of moving in and out, a physical as well as an emotional response.
00:27:20
Speaker
For me, this is why groups that have mixed ages in are so important because how you learn resilience if you cannot see the evidence in front of you of someone who is unravelling, rebuilding, knitting themselves together.
00:27:38
Speaker
The only reference points you may have are your own family and that isn't always useful for many people. Trying to have role models, if you want to use quite a grand term, but nuggets of wisdom or just those lived experiences that people who feel able to share just so important for younger people, especially women, because we're taught to be small and quiet. Yeah, that's right. And I was small, but I certainly wasn't quiet. And that's one of the key things.
00:28:06
Speaker
That's been my saving grace in surviving, I think, as a small woman. Yeah, I think that's just so important. If you think back the Tarkov Square and those really difficult multidisciplinary meetings, telling us like it is,
00:28:20
Speaker
in the words used by the person experiencing it, by someone who knows that lifestyle is just really key. It comes through in all the work that you do, the kind of vulnerability, the honesty. you can also It's also not projected, so you can take away what you make of it yourself, which I just think is what makes the work so interesting.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the vulnerability is ah another key thing. We're sort told it's not good to show vulnerability, but it actually it is a good thing to show your vulnerability, especially if it comes out within the work. It makes the work richer somehow.
00:28:58
Speaker
That allows connections to actually happen between you as the maker and and the people that are viewing And do you think you did that in the workplace as well? Yeah, I do. i mean, we were very blessed. We have really good line managers.
00:29:12
Speaker
And you have to show you that vulnerability, be able to ask, I need some help with this. I'm stuck with this. What can I do? do have days and moments where you think, oh my God, what on earth do you think you're doing? What made you think you could do this?
00:29:26
Speaker
There's always going to be that voice that creates that vulnerability, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think you have to learn. I've learned to make friends with that. I love that thought about making friends with vulnerability. I know this year has been tough and some health challenges, and I love your whole approach to also making friends with fear of that.
Overcoming Fear and Embracing Vulnerability
00:29:48
Speaker
Can you share a little bit about how you've managed that in some difficult hospital settings? Because it's just really empowering. So recently I was having a procedure and it was going to be really, really uncomfortable because they couldn't put me under the anaesthetic. So I was going to be awake and I was terrified.
00:30:06
Speaker
I think for the first time probably ever. the spiritual side of me where I like to really connect with myself is that I might go and book a Reiki session and I have a really good Reiki healer. I booked some time for with her. She kind of said, just say out loud very gently, i have nothing to fear.
00:30:23
Speaker
I did on the operating theatre. I was, I have nothing to fear when I was shaking from head to toe. And the registrar said, that's right, Sue, you have nothing to fear. Say again.
00:30:36
Speaker
So I said it again. And on the third time I said it, the whole operating theatre was saying it with me. i was so being held at that moment that my body just stopped shaking and I was absolutely fine to get through the other side of that procedure.
00:30:53
Speaker
Feel the fear and do it anyway feel like deny the fear, whereas really that then brings it in into you doesn't it? And you're carrying it around, whereas I love what you said. You're expelling...
00:31:05
Speaker
the fear by breathing it out by saying the words. i thought it was a really cool idea. That's it. Show the vulnerability and the magic can happen. Again, it's making a friend of it.
00:31:17
Speaker
Don't push it away. You know, you start pushing things away, you start getting anxieties. There's a reason why you know Traditionally, older women are always knitting, crocheting, embroidering. They're holding their whole family's anxieties in their minds that you need as something of a slower rhythm.
00:31:37
Speaker
to dispel your own fears about what's happening to them? 100%. You're all evolving together. It's how we deal with the fallout from that.
00:31:48
Speaker
And that too can be under the banner of burnout. You know, as a parent, we get burnt out. And I think these types of um creative that you've mentioned, you know, just them, Emily, I think they're really important. I think, you know, there's a lot of young people that take up, do the knitting as a career, do the weaving as a career, you know, as textile artists.
00:32:11
Speaker
That's a wonderful thing. and We're living in a very fast pace of life today. You have to really seek out and be conscious of finding your solitude. Weaving slows everything down for me. It's not only a physical rhythm, but it's a mental rhythm that you're in one with the body, connecting with the actual textile.
00:32:32
Speaker
You know, it's a very powerful tradition.
Reflections on Rebellion and Lifelong Learning
00:32:35
Speaker
What has surprised you the most about yourself when you think of Little Sue? in Camden to Sue, the twice-a-university-returned stellar career in social work and just about to have her own solo weaving show in the summer.
00:32:53
Speaker
Oh, gosh, that's such a big one, isn't it? Because it's such a big lie. To get to my age is is already a big lie. For little sue she's always had that fire in her belly. The the rebellious is what's always pushed her forward.
00:33:10
Speaker
I think the difference looking back is I always knew in my heart that I wasn't just going to be a stay-at-home mum, that there was going to be more to me and I was going to prove them all wrong, all the doubters, as I was going to show them. I think I was born with that in me. I'm really proud that I have been a role model to my own daughters, to my granddaughters and my grandsons as well, to look at me and say, Nan did that. And Everything was stacked against you because of not being diagnosed when should have been. I'm very proud to be a dyslexic. I don't see myself as a victim.
00:33:50
Speaker
And if I didn't have that, I can do this in me, I wouldn't be where I am today. i knew there was more... to being a woman than just giving birth. And I think all the the outside in influences of feminism, of the way lives were changing, working in women's refuges, everything connects and transpires and allows you to move on to the next part of you. and And that's why we never stop learning. I will never stop learning. I will always be going on to the next part.
00:34:21
Speaker
course and doing the next thing. It's a wonderful thing, creativity, freeing. I can't wait to see what you do next. I'm really looking forward to the show in June.
00:34:32
Speaker
Thank you. Well, I'm having it locally. I'm having it Bruce Williams Gallery and it will be between the 4th and the 10th for June. Another one of the fear where you think no one's going to come and see your work. We're all coming for the wine. No, we are coming for the wine. Good.
00:34:50
Speaker
Music to my ears. thanks, Sue, for talking to me. it's been awesome. Thank you, Emily. it's been It's been a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me on. Thank you so much.
00:35:18
Speaker
you