Most sides of Sue's family have been miners for several generations. Her maternal grandfather, Bryant Mahon Young (1900-1977), seen here at the Nostell Colliery near Wakefield in about 1925, had moved to Yorkshire in around 1922 from Cinderford in the Forest of Dean when work in the mines in that area had become scarce, taking with him his young wife Gladys and two young children.
However, the economic depression gripping Britain soon resulted in a miners' strike, which was a difficult time for Bryant and especially Gladys, who became very ill and died of tuberculosis in July 1926 at the age of 23.
Bryant remarried in 1932 to Nora Lavinia Vaughan Stoner (née Alford) whose former husband Fred Stoner had been killed in a mine. Bryant's two daughters were brought out of a home to join two brothers, two half-sisters and a half-brother.
Bryant never fully recovered his health after the dreadful conditions of coal mining in the early 20th century and died of bronchial pneumonia in 1977.
Bryant's father was Thomas Young (born in 1862 in Warwickshire), also a miner who had moved between Warwickshire and the Forest of Dean several times in search of work. He married Fanny Bevan, also of mining stock, and it is believed that they raised 8 sons and 4 daughters.
Tom's father was James Young, a free-miner in the parish of Cinderford, who is believed to have inherited a good adit or drift mine but then became penniless through drink and sold the mine to a local syndicate.
Little more is known about the Youngs. There is a family story that the singer and radio presenter Jimmy (actually Leslie Ronald) Young is a cousin of Bryant and son of a baker in Cinderford. The latter at least is correct (a Frederick G. Young), but it has not yet been possible to make the connection.