Susie Clark: in Kirkcaldy you show up, take part, and give back

“I don’t believe in people coming, taking, and not giving,” she says. “If you live somewhere, you should engage with it, support it and put something back.”

This belief is rooted in a lifetime of independence. Susie grew up in Grimsby, a hardworking fishing town where people got on with things and looked out for one another. “It wasn’t posh,” she laughs. “It was solid, working class. People worked hard for what they had, and that stays with you.”

Her father Ken was a merchant seaman in Glasgow, and through him she developed an affection for Scotland. “My dad gave me my love of Scotland,” she said.

Her independent spirit showed early. At 17, after being publicly shamed at school for kissing her boyfriend while in uniform, she made a decision that would shape her life.

“So, I told school what they could do,” she said, smiling, “and I never went back.”

Susie trained as a nursery nurse, married young in 1976, and is a proud as punch Mum to her son, Richard and daughter, Sam. Life became challenging, with health problems, and a marriage breakdown in the 1980s, leaving her raising her children alone at a time when support for single mothers was limited and often unkind.

“There wasn’t help back then,” Susie says. “Women were meant to shut up and put up. I thought, what about my feelings?”

Money was tight. One Christmas Eve she received a repossession notice due to her soon to be ex-husband not paying the mortgage as per the Court Order. “I had no roof, no money,” she says. Susie fought, for her children, for her home. “We were a team,” she says. “I always told them, ‘This is our life. We’re in it together.’”

That determination followed her into working life. Susie became active in trade unions, eventually serving as a regional convener.

“They picked me because I had the biggest mouth,” she laughs, “but someone had to stand up.”

Years later, Richard’s Royal Air Force posting brought him to Scotland with a home in Kirkcaldy, and Susie followed. When she arrived in the Lang Toun, she made a conscious choice to belong.

“I knew I was an incomer,” she said, “so, I joined things straight away -art club, knitting group, cinema, walking. You don’t just arrive and expect a place to entertain you.”

Now, a decade on, with regular visits to see grandkids, Kaleem and Lillia, Kirkcaldy is home.

“It reminds me of Grimsby,” she said. “Hardworking and real. It’s been through tough times, and so have I. Maybe that’s why it fits.”

Susie is fiercely protective of the town.

“Kirkcaldy is the jewel in the Kingdom’s crown. Everywhere is losing department stores,” she said. “Even big cities. So, stop blaming Kirkcaldy and support what we’ve got.”

Susie shops locally, uses cash, and promotes events whenever she can. “People say there’s nothing on,” she said, “but they don’t go to what is on.”

For Susie, soon celebrating her 70th birthday, community is not a slogan. It is something you do. You show up, you take part and you give back.

“I’ve fought too hard for my independence,” she said. “So, I’m not sitting waiting for life to happen. I’m going out and living it, like many women in the town,”.

And Kirkcaldy, our jewel, is better because she does.