Susan Elizabeth Openshaw (née Scott Stokes) was born into a Quaker family in Somerset. The third of six children, she was a mischievous, imaginative, creative child with a voracious appetite for reading and an excellent memory. She was at Sidcot School (age 12-17) and read medicine at Somerville, Oxford, where she met her husband, William. They became general practitioners in Glastonbury in 1953. She did not have a solemn approach to her practice, and always managed to inject a note of humour into many aspects of her work. She was elected to the town council in 1963 with a record number of votes and passed her love of outdoor pursuits to her children. Her eldest son, Tom, was killed in a climbing accident at 19; this may have been the cause of the relative lassitude and chest pain which afflicted her for some 15 years. She was mayor of Glastonbury in 1971 and 1991 and on the county council 1985-9 and 1993-7. She was a governor of Sidcot School from 1994 to 2001 and chaired the committee for several years. Her love of sailing, hill walking, reading, playing the piano, and giving good advice were abiding strengths. At 75, she began to show signs of dementia and lost her ability to communicate but not her personality. She leaves her beloved husband, two sons (a doctor and a lawyer), and five grandchildren.
Former general practitioner Glastonbury (b 23 December 1925; q Oxford/King’s College, London, 1949), d 17 January 2008.