This is a slightly longer version of the piece I reaad at Suzanne's funeral

Suzanne sang with the Oxford folk choir Rising Voices from 2010 to 2016 and then again 2021 to 22.  Here she made many friends, sang in concerts, attended festivals and recorded a CD.  Through Cat McGill, the then director of Rising Voices, she also became involved with Oxfolk Ceilidhs in 2013, joining Cat, me and others on the organising committee.  Looking back through photos, I find her on the ticket desk wearing an improbably large sombrero for a Mexican themed ceilidh; sometimes dancing; and often chatting with Cat or Adrian D’Orling at the back of the dance.

She also became a regular at folk sessions in local pubs.  Sometimes she would sing, or join in with the tunes on recorder, occasionally melodeon.  Mostly, she listened, soaking up what was sometimes an electric atmosphere.  But everyone loved it when she sang - what a compelling, beautiful and expressive voice she had!  

Music and chatting was an ideal combination, and she could do that in the highly social and informal setting of a session.  She got to do a lot more chatting when she stewarded at festivals.  At Towersey Festival, we camped next to each other, sat up late and spent our stewarding shifts at the Box Office.  One year, with my partner Jonathan Marriott, and Cat and Euan McGill and family, we toasted her birthday with slightly warm prosecco and sloe gin cocktails.  

Suzanne learnt to play the ukulele, forming the Ukulele Orchestra of Wantage with Jenny Johns and Nigel Thornbory.  Jenny tells me that it was really an excuse to get together, drink wine and chat, but they did actually play several gigs, with Suzanne harmonising (almost seamlessly) on I’ll Fly Away, then taking the lead on These Boots Were Made for Walking, featuring a particularly clumpy pair of boots.  

In 2015 she and Jenny set up a monthly ukulele social in the King Alfred’s Head in Wantage.  Jenny says, “I will never forget the uplifting sound of Whiskey In the Jar played on 30 plus ukuleles.”

When in 2017 and 18 Suzanne and I became guest singers with The Mad Hatters Ceilidh Band for two themed concerts (the first about Thomas Hardy; the second a commemoration of the end of the First World War) she found a meeting point for her interests in music, history and acting.  As well as dueting on songs like Dancing at Whitsun, we had readings from letters to the Front and poems.  She sang Roses in Picardy so poignantly.  

We laughed a lot, too, probably more in rehearsals for the Hardy concert, and especially about singing The Grenadier and the Lady - a song about nightingales, which really isn’t about nightingales, as you find sometimes in folk song.

When in 2020 everyone's lives were turned upside down by the COVID pandemic and lockdowns, Suzanne would sometimes be a digital steward at Folk Weekend Oxford's Zoom concerts (these carried on long after the festival in April 2020), helping behind the scenes to run the Zoom meeting.  Dinah, the last of her chickens, preferred to spend time in Suzanne's house more than outside in the hen house, and could sometimes been seen by others in the Zoom call, perched behind her on the sofa.  My memories of this time are a bit hazy, but I think there was a moment at the end of a John Spiers concert when his chicken (also sometimes a house hen) was held up to the camera, and so was Dinah.

In recent years, health prevented Suzanne being as involved with folk events, apart from trips to see groups like The Spooky Men’s Chorale, Lady Maisery and Police Dog Hogan (the song Shitty White Wine was a particular favourite).  In fact, Suzanne attended Lady Maisery’s online singing workshop during one of the lockdowns.  Reconnecting with singing was a real tonic for her, but hard as well as she said that it felt like her voice had seized up.  Never one to give up, she persisted and her voice returned, as she did to Rising Voices.

I was so very pleased when she came to a dance I was playing in 2022.  It was great to see her listening from the back, and even having the odd dance.  She and I continued to spend time together, usually walking and bird watching, but we carried on talking about music and listening to CDs whilst driving.  Folk music was one aspect of her many interests, and it brought her some very dear friends. I’m so glad that we all shared that music together.