Susan was Brian's middle daughter from his first marriage. They came to us when we got together as he had custody of Susan and her older sister Carolyn. There is a third daughter but as she was only a baby when he and Lucy split up she remained with her mother. Susan at the time was 8 and Carolyn 10. I found it pretty difficult at first as I was only 19 at the time but I managed and Susan was with us until she got married in August 1978 when she was 22. Barry her husband would never tell anyone what his middle initial stood for, but of course it came out at the wedding and as her brothers and sisters were quite young at the time there was a lot of giggles and snorts etc when they found out it was Gilmore. Nowadays with some unusual names around no one would take any notice, needless to say they have never let it go over the years as they have all grown.
In 1991 she had Barry junior and three years later Paul,and 5 years after that Simon.
When Susan was 10 she was diagnosed as having Epilepsy, nocturnal Grande Mal and daytime petite mal, so all her life she has taken drugs for this which did not help when she had the children as we were all warned that it could cause problems and unfortunately this was proved correct. Barry is a little slow, and Paul is Autistic. Simon fortunately does not seem to have been affected and is very bright. We seem to remember that she was on different drugs at that time. So her life has not been easy. Paul in particular has always been a handful as he can be violent, but most of the time he is manageable, he goes to a special centre at the moment, which although he is now sixteen he will remain at for another 3 years. Like so many handicapped youngsters he is a really nice looking boy.
Unfortunately Susan died on Monday 23rd October,2000.at the age of 46, after a massive fit, at the time of writing this 5 days ago. It was to say the least a most awful shock and as I took the call, very hard to have to tell her father, you do not expect your children to go before you. The family as a whole are devastated as you can imagine as all of them have always been supportive as best they could over the years and of course all remember things from when they were small. Susan was I think a little jealous when they were born but as they grew up together things were ok. June and Fran remember her taking them to the pictures, Brian his first Arsenal football match, although when she married Barry she changed her allegiance to Millwall. Kevin as she was 16 when he was born she became very attached to and used to have him to stay when she got married. I know we will all come through this as we are a close knit family anyway and we are all going to have to help and support Barry as much as we can.
Barry lent me their wedding album so I could scan some of the photo's which I have just put on this page, and we will search now for earlier photos which I know we have in a box upstairs. Just a little sooner than we had planned. |
