Suzanne Michele 'Suzie' Astle (3 Feb 1968 - 25 Oct 2016)

My darling Suzanne you were, and will always be, my best friend. Time and distance changes nothing. All my love Fiona x

A wonderful lady with an amazing smile, you will be greatly missed. Thinking of you John, Will and Sam. With much love Kirstie, Ellie, Will and Georgia xx

Such a lovely lady with a wonderful smile. Our thoughts are with John, Will and Sam. With love Kirstie, Ellie, Will and Georgia xx

A lovely lady with the biggest smile. Our thoughts are with John, Will and Sam. With love Kirstie, Ellie, Will and Georgia xx

We will always remember Suzie with deep fondness and feel blessed that we had the pleasure of knowing her. A lady who was beautiful inside and out. With much love from Dawn, Ian and Sam xxx

We will always remember Suzie fondly and feel blessed that we had the pleasure of knowing her. A lady who was beautiful inside and out. With much love from Dawn, Ian and Sam xxx

From us to others for you our Gorgeous Girl - xx Anthony, Sarah, Katie, Robert & Casper

INTRODUCTION
Something very special has been taken way
Suzie`s life has ended too early but we take great comfort from knowing that she lived a full and happy life and she saw many of her dreams come true and made many dreams come true for many people
Suzie had a part in the life of everybody here, which means that all of us should be able take strength from being sure that she would want us to focus our thoughts and energy not on being sad but on the many positive memories that can never be taken away.
It is not difficult to imagine her telling us to get on with smiling, laughing and remembering happy times
That is what we intend to do.
Before we share some of our favourite stories;
On behalf of all our family we would like to say thank you to everybody for your thoughts, concerns and support.
Please know that every call, every letter and every thought however sent has been a great comfort to everybody.
PARK HOUSE & ALAN BALL
Suzanne Michele Paul was born in Park House, Waterloo, Liverpool 22 on February 3rd 1968. It was the year of the monkey. Suzie was adorable, a little tiny thing with black hair. Anthony had not been too keen to have another sister but he and Carolyn soon got to love her she was fun from the word go. Even as a new born baby Suzie was unusually popular. Mum had many more visitors than she had before with Anthony or Carolyn and never worked out why. Another interesting fact about Suzie’s birth is that World Cup winner Alan Ball’s wife was in the next room having given birth a few days earlier. Suzie was driven home to Formby in an Everton Blue Morris 1100.
SWIMMING
Suzie was an active and exuberant child whether it was cycling into sand-pits or jumping into swimming pools before she could swim. She was a real water-baby though and learned to swim at about five on holiday in Majorca.
UNCLE TONY KIM
One of several family pets that Suzie had growing up was a gorgeous and mad Springer Spaniel called Kim. By the time we lived in Maidenhead Kim had taken to roaming the neighbourhood and knocking over bins. Kim could climb a six foot fence, break through a gate and rearrange furniture and fitted carpets. At about the same time an old family friend was asking after Suzie’s Uncle Tony who he knew well and who was suffering with a bad leg. Suzie joined the conversation part way through and marvellously got the wrong end of the stick “Oh it was his own fault” she said “He got out one night and squeezed through the bars of the park. He twisted his leg and then lay on the floor moaning all night!” Tony is here today, he has driven down with Suzie’s cousins Andrew and Sally. Tony’s leg has been bothering him again recently but please don’t ask him if he did it squeezing through the bars of the park.
BEDROOM AND SMOKING
Suzy and I were quite different as children and teenagers, but we had a lot in common too. We used to share a bedroom and we used to have our own little Christmas tree (complete with our own chocolate decorations) and we had regular private midnight feasts usually with iced buns from Marks and Spencer. She often had friends sleeping over too and I have many vivid memories of them dancing around to records from her portable record player, Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I am what I am’ and anything by Wham being particular favourites. A couple of her friends have reminded me recently how they used to hang out of our bedroom window smoking, but I think she waited until I left before she did that.
SUZY SHY
We went to the same schools most of the time too, due to the age difference we didn’t see that much of each other there, but there were a couple of memorable parents’ evenings. Mum often tells the story of the one she went to shortly after Suzy started school, she sat down, very concerned and asked the teacher ‘oh dear, is she very shy?’ to which the teacher looked surprised and replied ‘Oh no Mrs Paul, in fact she’s really rather naughty!’.
PARENTS EVENING
Suzie provided every reluctant student with a number of inspirational moments
One of our favourites was the time that upon arrival at the Teachers meeting our Mum was shown allot of concern.
At the point the concern appeared too much Mum asked what was happening
The teacher told her that Suzie had advised the teacher that she should make she was easy going on Mum due to her heart condition
Anthony Was Very Impressed
MRS LEIGHTON GOODBYE
Apart from her friends Suze didn’t really get that much out of school and talked about the hours she spent in “the broom cupboard” at Newlands waiting to be told off by head teacher Mrs Leighton. I only remember Suzie planning one school project. Towards the end of school she put quite a lot of thought into it. Suzie was planning her last day of school when she hoped to walk past Mrs Leighton in full make-up and high-heels smoking a cigarette.
DON’T WANT TO MARRY A VICAR
Around this time Mum and Dad decided Suzy should have confirmation classes but she was resisting strongly and demanded in good teenage fashion <<ONE GOOD REASON>> why she should. So Mum told her that if she wasn’t confirmed a vicar might refuse to marry her, to which Suzy replied in exasperation <<but I don’t want to marry a Vicar anyway>>
Maybe she didn’t want to marry a Vicar because she had a bit of a thing for a man in uniform
BLODWEN ON FIRE & FIREMEN
Until she met John Firemen were her favourites, Firemen figure in another story which shows Suzie`s ability to see the positives in any situation. Suzie`s first car was a VW Beetle, she loved it, it was her pride and joy, It was pretty old though and eventually one day the engine burst into flames but her distress was completely eclipsed by the fact that she had a whole fire engine full of firemen to herself
AVOIDING HOUSEWORK FANDANGO
Suzie was always hard-working, as a teenager she had several jobs sometimes at the same time. Once when Dad asked her why she was working so much she said “I don’t want to sit at home with you and mum I like people”. Suzie didn’t work for the sake of it though and growing up could dodge housework and avoid getting told off at the same time by making everyone else laugh doing her famous fandango.
NANA – OLD BAT
Some of you will remember Nana (Suzie’s grandmother) picture a sweet and frail silver-haired old lady in her late seventies. Nana lived with us from when Suze was about 16. Suzie would pick her up and run around with her and Nana would laugh hysterically. One day Suze was walking home and saw a frail silver-haired old lady in her late seventies near our house. “Where are you going you old bat?” She shouted out as she came up behind the old lady. The shocked old lady turned around. It wasn’t Nana. Suzie only made things worse by following up with: “I’m sorry I thought you were my grandmother”.
LADRAM BAY BOAT
Suzie was always up for an adventure and always made light of things when things did not go to plan
On one occasion we were on a boat that sank and we spent 30 minutes in the cold sea
Clearly this was not good but Suzie laughed throughout the experience and as the rescue boat arrived back to the beach all that the people on the beach heard was Suzie shouting PUT THE KETTLE ON !!
BA JOB – LOVE OF TRAVEL
Working on the river boats in Maidenhead for functions and regattas Suzie was first given the idea of applying to BA as Cabin Crew. She was only just the right age, and didn’t have a second language. Despite this Suzie got through first time presumably because of her instinct to always put other people first. Suzie loved the job and the travel and became familiar with and loved cities across the world. Cities like New York, Sidney and Nairobi not so much.
FIRST DATE
When a First Officer took her out on a glamorous date to the Truck in Narita to sing Karaoke there was no looking back. Suzie and John set up home in Stoneleigh with lovely Molly the Labrador and were married on 23rd June 2000. On 3rd April 2002 and 10th February 2006 their gorgeous boys were born and Suzie could not have been happier.
JOHN & SUZIE ENGAGEMENT
Many of us here have probably experienced how difficult it is to get John and Suzie into the right place – particularly on skiing holidays
On one occasion in December 1999
We were waiting for ages for them to arrive at the bottom of the ski slope
We assumed it was because they were trying to adjust something in the ski clothing
But when they arrived at the bottom
We learned that they had actually been planning
A new chapter was about to start and Suzie was about to see more of her dreams come true becoming a Wife and a Super Mum
CRYSTAL ANGELS
Suzy was very generous with her family concessions when she worked for BA and one year shortly after she joined she got the two of us cheap flights to New York in early December and while we were there we found the perfect Christmas present for Mum, some little glass candles sticks in the shape of angels. Throughout the whole trip every time I referred to ‘Mum’s candlesticks’ Suzy would correct me ‘They’re not candlesticks Cags, they’re Crystal Angels’ until we were stopped in customs on the way home and the customs officer asked what was in her bag ‘oh just some old candlesticks’ she replied.
ROALD DAHL – GYPSY HOUSE
Something Suzy and I also had in common was books and stories. We loved Roald Dahl stories, for a couple of years when we were children we lived close to his home Gypsy House in Great Missenden/Lee Common and we relived these stories again with our own children when we went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda at the theatre in London.
HARRY POTTER
Recently we also shared a love of Harry Potter although we were both disappointed to be sorted into Slytherin on Pottermore.
STRICTLY
We often compared notes about TV shows like Bake-off and of course Strictly Come Dancing. Suzy and I had a standing joke after a couple of years ago when for some reason she was convinced that David Beckham was taking part. She was my sister, so I took her word for it and told everyone else. My poor family sat through a whole episode waiting to see him…..after that every year she tried to think of more and more unlikely people to see on it, recent suggestions were Vladimir Putin or the Dalai Lama, but even she never imagined Ed Balls!
I think that the year David Beckham didn’t take part was the year that another footballer’s wife won and she said as they awarded her prize that it was ‘the best thing that ever happened to her’ and Suzy was absolutely shocked…’what about her wedding day, or the births of her children’ because for Suzy those were things that nothing else could compare to.


As well as being a super-mum and wife Suzie adored being an auntie to all her nephews and nieces volunteered in both her boys’ schools and discovered a new vocation over the last year working supporting children as a physiotherapist at Brooke School in Rugby.
Suzie was taken from us in a tragic accident on holiday in South Africa. We can’t change that but we can be comforted that Suzie was travelling with her family, visiting friends and on an adventure.
Family, friends, travel and adventure the great joys of Suzie’s life.
Everyone who met Suzie loved her. We could feel bereft afraid of a huge hole opening up in our lives that Suze once filled. This is understandable but it is forgetting the joy and love that Suzie shared with us. This is what we will all remember. “When I think of her she is always laughing” said a friend who had not seen Suze since we were children. Suzie will always be laughing and Suze will always be loving. All of us who were lucky enough to spend time with her are richer because of it. There will always be more love in our lives because we knew Suzie.
Suzie brought so much laughter and had such a sense of fun. Picture her now: someone says something and it starts with just a twinkle of a smile from Suzie, you smile too and she grins. A minute later and there are tears of laughter rolling down both your faces.

Suzie you were a beautiful lady with an incredible smile.

Love Andy, Sam , Ben , Charlie and Harry xxxxx

Suzie
I never had the pleasure of knowing you, but I do know how much you were loved by John - He always spoke so lovingly about you.
Estelle

For a gorgeous lovely lady... fond memories. Thinking of you John Williams and Sam x

Fond memories of a gorgeous lady. Thinking of you John Williams and Sam x

Suzi you were a brilliant mother, sister, daughter, wife and water skier. You will be so missed by family and all your friends.

importantly in your absence the boys will be in good hands under the guidance of John

love from us all

Charles,Ali,Callum & Matty x

So sorry to hear this tragic news, I never knew you Suzie, but I do know how much John loved you, and how he always spoke so lovingly of you.
Best wishes
Estelle

An amazingly generous lady with a beautiful, cheeky smile and such a sense of fun. Always thinking of and looking out for other people is how I will always remember Suzie.

Love from Shelley, Phil and Carter x

I miss you everyday whenever I head out for a walk without you and Molly. Such a lovely, kind, caring and gorgeous friend. xxx

I feel very privileged to have known Suzie. She made me feel so very welcome when my boys joined KHPS. Such a warm and kind person. X

Dear John,Will and Sam
So very sad to hear the news of Suzie
Such a devoted Mum
Thinking of you all
Janette xxxx

Dear John,Will and Sam
So very sad to hear the news of Suzie,
A truly devoted Mum,
Thinking of you all ,
Janette xxxx

Suzie was a truly special person and it was such a pleasure to have known her. She was a so warm and generous, and full of life and vitality. Needless to say, she was a devoted, kind and loving mother to her two lovely boys.
My heart-felt sympathy goes to her wonderful family, John, Will and Sam at this very sad time.

With deepest sympathies from all at Gentry Men's Hair Salon

Dear John, Will & Sam. So very sorry to hear of the loss of Suzie, our thoughts and love are with you and your family xx

Bye my darling - you made all our lives better by being gorgeous, kind, funny you. x

I was so sad to hear the news of Suzanne's tragic accident. She was a lovely, kind lady who gave freely of her time to help at school. I remember her as a devoted, caring and loving mother to Will and Sam and my thoughts are with you all.