Sue Bigg

Sue Bigg sponsored a silver birch, planted winter 2015/16 at 38 Tanner’s Hill, Deptford. The sponsorship was in memory of her parents Jim Bing December 1924-2008 and Elisabeth Bing 29th May 1925-2001.

Jim and Elisabeth had lived in St John’s in the 1950s. They had met and married in Germany in 1945. Jim was on active service. Elisabeth was a locally recruited cook in the officers’ mess. Later they settled in Lewisham. For them “Lewisham was a big melting pot - something they valued, which in Germany had brought them together”. They “liked the influx of people into the borough especially the Poles”. Elisabeth was fluent in Polish, and often pretended to be Polish to cope with the anti-German feeling around her after the war. Sue remembers “her parents believed firmly in the EU - on the basis that it kept the peace”, and that “despite their language barrier they managed to be happy together”.

Sue herself was born in Greenwich. Aged Six she moved to Sidcup with her parents. “They wanted to escape their memories of cities under bombardment tin both UK and Germany.” As an adult Sue lived in Australia before returning to Lewisham in 1992.