Iris Maureen arrived on 5th May 1933 to Winnifred Lucy (Winnie) and Harry Sutton and older sister June.  First photographs show Iris with a pudding basin haircut, which she loathed!, glasses and a wonderful smile – she is instantly recognisable!  She blossomed beautifully.  Her School Report is remarkable for being so spot on and summing up the Iris she became:
 
Miss Iris Sutton has been a pupil in this school since August 1944 and has completed the normal Four Year’s Course. Her attendance has been most satisfactory, her conduct excellent and her character exemplary.
 
Miss Sutton is highly intelligent and has plenty of sound common sense and practical ability. She is honest, trustworthy, reliable, willing, earnest, hardworking helpful and conscientious.
 
It is with the greatest of pleasure that I testify to her integrity of character, high moral tone and refinement in manners and speech. Miss Sutton has a charming personality and a most attractive sunny disposition. As class Captain she has radiated happiness and good feeling among the girls.
 
I recommend her with the utmost confidence to an employer who is in need of a steady, sensible and capable worker.
I wish her Godspeed
Gertrude Herring – Head Teacher
 
How very apt! We all remember her smile, her laugh, her sense of fun and that is what we miss the most.  Her character set, she had to leave school and worked at a Bank for over 14 years. Enjoying friendships, cycling and dancing she met John at 22, their lives henceforth intertwined.  With their Green Morris Minor, nicknamed Varicose Vera, they bought matching duffle coats and enjoyed days and weekends out, marrying in August 1956.  Richard and Clare arrived and busy family life took over.  Iris returned to full time work and they enjoyed holidays in Scotland with John’s family and later in Nerja with friends.
 
Both took up golf, with lots of new friendships and happy years at Chadwell Springs, East Herts and Nazeing Golf clubs. They managed a round-the-world trip on their retirement and both were Captains. Five grandchildren, George, Joe, Alfie, Patrick and Lara kept them busy and laughing.  A wonderful extended family celebration in 2006 for Iris and John’s 50th Wedding Anniversary was held at Hanbury Manor – a life well lived, jointly loved and full of hard work and family and friends. 
 
Sadly, Iris succumbed to Alzheimers, which presented by immediately affecting her speech.  She maintained her laugh and smile throughout, with her healthy, active life keeping her medication free.   John supported her tirelessly and she stayed at home for much longer than could have been anticipated.  He looked after her with tremendous strength and devotion, becoming chief cook and bottle washer, hairdresser and complete carer.  Iris moved to Belmont Home in Spring 2019.   John visited very regularly.  The lovely carers felt he was ‘Such a gentleman’, helping at a silent disco and also taking a canal trip together just in September.  Sadly John was in hospital for 2 weeks, and was unable to see his beloved ‘I’ in the weeks before her death on 29th November.