They Also Served — Lady Sue Ryder of Warsaw — Obituary 2

I am most grateful to Dominic Castle (Deputy Editor) and the writer Alan Cocksedge at the East Anglian Daily Times
for permission to reproduce this article. © Copyright 2000 The East Anglian Daily Times & Alan Cocksedge.

Sue Ryder - a life dedicated to others

By Alan Cocksedge

From the East Anglian Daily Times
November 1, 2000

image-Sue Ryder Photo 1 BARONESS Ryder of Warsaw, CMG, OBE, who died in October 2000, was born Sue Ryder in 1923 into a large farm-owning family from Yorkshire.

Her mother Mabel, to whom Sue Ryder attributed much of her inspiration, had married widower Charles Ryder in 1911, and the marriage produced five children.

In addition to their estate at Scarcroft, near Leeds, the family had a second estate at The Hall, Great Thurlow in Suffolk, where they spent their summer months. It is now part of Vestey estate.

Despite her family’s landed background, Sue Ryder’s eyes were opened to poverty through her mother, who took her children on many town visits in the North as a campaigner for slum clearance and improved living conditions.

In the 1930s the family relinquished its Yorkshire interests to live full-time at Thurlow, by which time Sue Ryder was witnessing the widespread social misery caused by the Great Depression.

Taught at home by her socially-conscious mother until she was 10, she then went to the exclusive Kent boarding school Benenden but, after leaving at 16, decided to “cook” her age to join the armed forces at the beginning of the Second World War.

image-Sue Ryder Photo 2 As a member of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, she was quickly to see the atrocities of the fighting, and then served with the highly-secretive Special Operations Executive created by Winston Churchill to co- ordinate resistance activities in German- occupied Europe. She was attached to the SOE Polish section.

In 1945 she was with relief units caring for survivors of bombed-out France, nursing the sick and helping dig bodies from ruins. As her work continued, she systematically visited foreigners, mostly young Polish, imprisoned in Germany, successfully fighting for the freedom of many of them. Referring to them as The Boys, she overcame official indifference to set up a home for them in a former prison.

The horrors of the Nazi concentration camps added to her resolve to carry on the battle against suffering long after the Allied troops had gone home.

When United Nations relief groups pulled out in 1952, Sue Ryder stayed on. The following year, with only £1,000 from her personal savings and a small car, she opened her first home in England at Cavendish for “forgotten friends of the allies”.

Soon, her mother’s old home in the former village rectory was caring for more than 30 sick or injured survivors and displaced persons, mainly Poles, and the Sue Ryder Foundation was born.

But her aims branched out to provide homes and domiciliary care teams for the sick and disabled in any part of the world where there was a clear need, and where the opportunity presented itself.

As her network of homes expanded, the frail-framed campaigner, who became a devoted convert to Catholicism, maintained a frugal lifestyle, never drawing a salary, and dressing in clothing purchased from her charity shops.

Her home had been a flat in the charity’s headquarters, and for most of her life she rose at 4.30am to begin dealing with a massive postbag.

image-Sue Ryder Photo 3 In 1959 Sue Ryder married humanitarian, Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC, OM, DSO, DFC, the country’s best- known Second World War bomber hero, who was already head of his own international homes group, the Cheshire Foundation.

They had two children, daughter Elizabeth, who is now a doctor, and son Jeromy who continues to live in the Sudbury area.

After their marriage, the couple continued to run their charities independently, and also opened joint homes.

In 1978 Sue Ryder was created a life peer. Baroness Ryder of Warsaw sat in the House of Lords as a cross bencher.

For their silver wedding in 1984, they took 600 handicapped people from their homes in various part of the world to Rome for a family week. The couple renewed their marriage vows in St Peter’s, followed by an audience with Pope John Paul.

After her husband’s death Sue Ryder continued to play a significant role in the charity until 1998 when she agreed to relinquish her role as a foundation trustee on her 75th birthday, since when she has continued as a figurehead.