“No British person loved Poland more than Sue Ryder. She saw your pain as her pain, your resistance as her resistance” Sir Nick Young recently recounted during his talk about her. Entitled “Resistance and Remembrance” it was held at Ognisko Polskie (The Polish Hearth Club) in London on 3 July 2024, the centenary of Sue Ryder’s birth.

Polish Special Operations Executive

You may have heard of Sue Ryder Care Homes, which Sue Ryder set up in later life. Much earlier as a 16 year old, when World War II broke out, she volunteered to the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), lying about her age.

Soon after, she was spotted and sent to the Polish Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), an assignment that catapulted her into the harsh realities of war.

SOE had been set up in 1940 by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Specially trained agents would be parachuted into occupied countries to support Britain and the Allies’ role in the war. They spread anti-Nazi propaganda, collected important information and sabotaged targets.

Based at station STS17, Brickendonbury Manor in Hertfordshire, Sue’s task was to drive the Polish agents, called “Cichociemni” (the silent unseen), to the airfield where they would take off before being dropped into occupied Europe.

 

Caring for the brave agents

Sue would check whether the Polish agents had any incriminating evidence. Their clothes, the type of weapon, documents or compasses as well as ensuring they had their cyanide capsules in case of capture. The women “Fannies” called the agents “Bods” – somebodies. They looked after them, became their confidantes and gave them stability in light of their uncertain and dangerous future. It was a traumatising job as so many of her “Bods” never returned but Sue also experienced profound personal grief, marrying a Naval officer in 1942 – shortly after which he was killed in action.

“Often listening in the evening to the groups of parachutists [Cichociemni] as they talked deeply about life: the mistakes that had been made and what they believed could be done with peace when it came. I began then to think of ways in which the qualities they possessed and showed –  tolerance, faith, courage, humour and gaiety – might be perpetuated…. Instead of  trying to remember all those who had died fighting or in camps by means of a plaque or monument, one should go out and provide assistance and comfort to those who are sick, and in need, wherever they might be, regardless of nationality and religion, creating in this a kind of ‘living memorial’ to the dead” (Sue Ryder – And the Morrow is theirs, an autobiography, 1975)

Elżbieta Zawadzka – female agent

From 1943 Sue Ryder worked at Pollards Park House, Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire, where a training school was based, teaching the art of “black propaganda” – preparing printed postcards and leaflets in German to drop behind enemy lines. In September 1943 she shared a bedroom with the only female agent Elżbieta Zawadzka (as pictured) whom Clare Mulley has recently brought out of oblivion with her book “Agent Zo”.

The horrors in Europe

Sent overseas to North Africa and Italy in late 1943 with her driving job, she saw the massive destruction and devastation of people in Europe, saying herself that “the war and its aftermath have all been our teachers.” In 1944 she was involved in preparing transports to help those fighting in the Warsaw Uprising and had to stand by helplessly as 250,000 people were murdered within 63 days without being able to do anything. It linked her heart to Poland and it’s people for life.

Driving became her mission

As war ended, Sue worked with relief agencies amongst the shattered remains of European towns and cities, catering to the vast needs of concentration and labour camp survivors. Men and women having lost everything, in trauma, wandered through the countryside foraging for food and raiding properties. Sue organised trips to Warsaw, helping to sort through the rubble before rebuilding could begin. A particular focus were refugees who broke the law. Many traumatised men hunted down their former Nazi persecutors and were dealt with harshly by the Allied forces of occupation who were desperate to restore law and order. She visited thousands of these victims in prison, and pleaded on their behalf in court. Here began her diverse travels, going wherever she felt there was a need. Soon 30 Sue Ryder care homes were set up in Poland, a fact that Poles have never forgotten.

Childhood near Leeds

I was always aware of Sue Ryder charity shops to fund the work, as I grew up in Leeds. They were among the first to appear on the high street. Sue was born on 3 July 1924 into a wealthy landowning family in the village of Scarcroft, on the outskirts Leeds. Her father Charles Foster Ryder owning several estates in Yorkshire and East Anglia, but she worked in the dairy, made butter and assisted in the delivery of calves. Her mother was a devout Christian and undertook voluntary social work taking along her daughter who saw the appalling conditions of slum dwellings. Large families lived in these without clean water or toilet facilities and often slept together in a single bed. Later, Sue was sent to Benenden Boarding School in Kent, meeting Jewish refugees who confided in her about the Fascists arresting Jews in Italy. Sue wrote to her mother “If one didn’t believe in God and justice in the next world, one might despair“.

A life of care

In 1953 Sue Ryder set up the Sue Ryder Foundation based at her mother’s old home Cavendish House. Soon her hospitals and care homes were all over the world, looking after the needs of disabled, sick, older people and those dying. In 1955 Sue met Leonard Cheshire who ran his own charity and they worked well together, marrying in 1959, though they kept their charities separate. This was shortly after a trip to India where they set up a home for lepers.  

Happiest when driving to deliver aid or opening a new home, Sue had simple tastes. The contacts she had, however from her background and education ensured she got things done. Despite the communist government in Poland being suspicious of her links to the Polish government in exile in London, she continued to run her homes there. In 1975 Sue Ryder published her first autobiography „And the Morrow is theirs”.

Four years later she was created a life peer, choosing the title of Baroness Ryder of Warsaw as her tribute to the people of Poland. Nick Young who worked with her in the 1980s, said she would tell him to buy properties and get them prepared by “begging and borrowing equipment“. She disregarded the problem of financing by saying “the dibs will come”. Her work ethic was hard to match and her compassion extraordinary. By the time of Leonard’s death in 1992, Sue Ryder ran 80 homes and had 500 high street charity shops. Difficulties within the foundation led to Sue Ryder breaking links with it in 1998. Just before her death on 2 November 2000 she set up a new trust to continue her legacy.

 

Lady Ryder of Warsaw

“I feel like I belong to Poland. It is a colourful country, so often misunderstood”. It wasn’t until 1993 that she became an honorary citizen of Warsaw, followed by other cities.

A Sue Ryder museum opened in Warsaw in 2016. On the centenary of her birth, the Lady Ryder of Warsaw Memorial Trust set up by her, started a year of lectures, podcasts and documentation about her life. Follow them on twitter and instagram for events throughout the year.

Resistance and Remembrance

Resistance and remembrance is an excellent motto for Sue Ryder’s work, as she chose an active way to remember those who had resisted evil. It is still a very apt aim in today’s world. Perhaps though, we should put Remembrance first, to honour the sacrifices made for the peace that followed World War II. Resistance is still key to counter those who seek to falsify history, by sharing the true stories of these courageous people so they will never be forgotten.

I couldn’t have written this article without the excellent talk by Sir Nick Young, Robert Frith, chair of the trustees and the following sources:

• elitadywersji.org/sue-ryder/
• www.polskieradio.pl/39/156/Artykul/2991846,sue-ryder-wielki-duch-w-malym-ciele
• “And the morrow is theirs” and autobiography, Sue Ryder
• Lady Ryder Memorial Trust
• www.fundacjasueryder.pl