My buddy Sue Berridge, who has died aged 70, was a drama instructor of prodigious expertise and power admired for giving her all to her occupation and her area people.
From 1995 till her retirement in 2014, Sue was head of drama at Coleridge group faculty in Cambridge, the place the college’s annual exhibits, which she produced and directed, have been spectacular. Her manufacturing of My Honest Woman in 1998 was of very top quality and was adopted the following yr by Like We Have been Then, co-written by Sue and a mum or dad, Mike Levy, to rejoice the sixtieth anniversary of the school. In 1999 she helped pupils to supply a movie of a mock prime minister’s questions that received the Y10 Motorola parliamentary video competitors within the East Anglia area.
As an accredited examiner of her topic from 1978 to 2010, she introduced an additional dimension and data to her educating, however she will even be remembered by Coleridge college students for the superhuman efforts she made to save lots of the college in 1997, when it was threatened with closure on account of falling pupil numbers. Performing as the school’s press officer, she arrange a marketing campaign that concerned college students, dad and mom and the area people, and which persuaded the schooling authority to alter its thoughts.
Born in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, Sue was the daughter of Margaret (nee Burton), a major faculty instructor, and Ken Bell, a telecommunications engineer. She attended King James grammar faculty within the city, the place she made lasting friendships. She went on to review drama and English at Homerton Faculty in Cambridge and started her educating profession in 1974 at Longsands faculty (now Longsands academy) in St Neots, Cambridgeshire.
She married Graham Berridge in 1975, and after taking just a few years’ absence from educating to boost their kids, in 1985 she returned part-time to the classroom at Melbourne Village faculty, close to to their dwelling in Sawston, Cambridgeshire. She additionally turned chair of the governors of Sawston major faculty.
After separation from Graham (they divorced in 1997), a serendipitous assembly in a cinema queue in 1995 led to a protracted and pleased partnership with Glenn Thwaites.
Following Sue’s retirement in 2014 she ran the weekly quizzes at her native pub – a masterclass in managing a room filled with argumentative quizzers. She additionally joined a neighborhood strolling group and volunteered as a steward. Not lengthy earlier than her loss of life she certified as a city information in Clare, Suffolk.
She is survived by Glenn and her kids, Sophi and Alex.
