From uneducated single mum to University professor
At the age of 24, Sue Black was fleeing an abusive husband with her three small children, now she’s a professor of Computer Science and Technology Evangelist at Durham University.
She told BBC 5 Live’s Naga Munchetty how she made a success of her life.
It was 6am when Sue’s now ex-husband woke her up to threaten her and their three children’s lives.
“There had been moments in the few months leading up to that where I’d thought to myself I needed to get out of that situation… He’d threatened my life before but he’d never threatened the children before and that was the thing that really triggered me in thinking I’ve got to leave.”
Sue didn’t have any family she could run to at that time so she packed a suitcase, and took her twin sons and their three-year-old sister across the road to a friend’s house to call women’s aid who organised a room in a refuge for her that night.
“We were there for six months and then for a council flat in Brixton and started life again. I had five O Levels and hadn’t worked in some years because I’d been bringing up the kids.
“I knew I had to get back to work to earn some money, but then actually I’d be on minimum wage and wouldn’t earn enough money to pay for childcare, so realised going back to work wasn’t an option – so thought about going back into education… I hadn’t wanted to leave school at 16.”
Sue went to Southwark College in London and asked if she could do an A Level in Maths, which had been her best subject in school.
“I found a course luckily which was equivalent to two A Levels in maths in one year, which was mainly working from home and of course I had three little kids so that suited me. I did that for a year which meant I got into University to do a degree in Computing, because I was excited about technology.”
“In 1989 during the final year of my degree, my project supervisor said to me ‘what do you think about doing a PhD?’ I said I’d love to, but what I didn’t tell him was I didn’t know what a PhD was!
“I went away and looked it up in the University library, and thought: ‘actually yes, I would like to do a PhD’ because it was research and I’d enjoyed the research in my final year. I started a PhD in software engineering – it took me seven years instead of three, but I got there eventually.”
Towards the end of her PhD, Sue began attending networking events, an experience she found intimidating.
“At one conference I tried to start a conversation with two guys who were standing together, I went over and asked an icebreaker question – they both looked at me, looked at each other and started talking to each other while completely ignoring me.
“I stood there for 30 seconds thinking ‘what do I do now they’ve completely blanked me?’ Then I went off and sat in the loo and started crying. Now I wouldn’t care less, it’s their problem, but back then I wasn’t very confident and it was horrific.”
Her experiences at conferences made her believe she was “hopeless” at conferences, until she went to a women’s science conference in Brussels.
“I went in thinking I was hopeless at conferences and that I couldn’t network – I went in, got a cup of tea, stood at a table and for the next two days I was non-stop chatting to people because those barriers weren’t there.
“It helped me realise if you’re an a majority, life is so much easier and that’s something I hadn’t realised before, and that’s affected the things I’ve done since.”
Sue came back from that conference and set up BCSWomen, the UK’s first online network for women in tech.
Since then she’s done “various things” to support minorities, people of colour and women into technology because she believes it’s “such an enabler”.
Her latest project is Tech Mums, which helps mums learn coding, app design, web design and how to set up their own businesses and get online.
“It’s about empowering women through tech to change their lives and their families lives… We’re now operating in a global marketplace, so people who are tech savvy and trained in tech in the UK can get jobs across the work – particularly as we’re now all working from home.”
Looking back on her life and career, Sue says she’s come a long way.
“I’ve got my dream job at Durham University, got four kids – my oldest daughter is 37 now and my youngest is nearly 17, and five grandchildren with one on the way and a lovely husband, I can’t leave him out!
“It’s really shown me that if you’ve got one person really supporting you, it changes your life so much.”
