Susan Margaret Monk

Susan Margaret Monk was my second wife and born in Marton, New Zealand in 1948. We were married in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1975 and had no children.

We met in Melbourne, Australia where we both worked for Hawker Siddely Brush. I wanted to return to the UK to be closer to my kids who had returned there with my first wife Judith after we separated and Sue decided to come with me. After starting a new company in Edinburgh we had several weeks before I had to start so we loaded the car with camping gear and headed south as far as Greece before driving up to Norway to the parent company in Ulsteinvik.

Sue worked as a secretary with Christian Salvesen in Edinburgh before starting a secretarial agency business with her friend Angela.

Here she is on the left in Edinburgh in the late 70's in her best rabbit fur coat at the wedding of Angela Hendry, one of her friends. A couple of years later we were on holiday in Corfu, the hair has grown and changed colour.

Sometime in the early 80's we were on holiday in Italy and met up with Mike and Pat Palmer at Lake Garda. Below left is Sue and Pat after an extensive wine tasting of Amarone at a local vineyard!

Below right is Sue with an unusually smart "Taffy" at her 40th Birthday celebration in 1988. Andrew Reid is in the background.

In the winter of 2019 Sue was misdiagnosed with a muscle strain but as the pain increased we demanded she see a bone doctor and after CT and MRI scans was diagnosed with secondary bone cancer which was terminal. The primary cancer was never discovered and after extensive radiation and chemotherapy the doctors said they could do no more. The tumours near her spine eventually caused complete paralysis below the waist and she became bedridden at the turn of the year.

On 10th May 2020 Sue passed away at our home in Tauranga.