people profile
interviewed by Sonia Golt
Proud new grandparents: His Exellency the Governor Sir Adrian Johns, Lady Johns, their son James and grandson Arthur Rawlyn Hetherington-Johns
Lady Johns:
Relative Values Lady Johns, His Exellency the Governor Sir Adrian Johns’s wife, is a very clever lady and certainly more than just the woman behind the “throne”. She is unassuming and portrays a very down to earth character who enjoys a diversity of things. Born in the Himalayas in India, where her father was a mining engineer, she was brought up in the quietness of the hills, surrounded by the colours of India. Young Suzie was carried in her mother’s arms absorbing it all with her senses without realising it would stay with her forever. She found the place amazing and returned as a teenager for a déjà vu. She remembered her ‘Ayah’ (nanny), and on this return trip she visited her and was surprised to find that the lady she had looked up to and seemed so tall was actually quite petit! “My regret is that I did not continue with the Hindu language I spoke as a young girl,” she says at the Convent, Gibraltar’s Governor’s residence. “My eldest sister, five years older than me, still speaks it. Unfortunately I was too young when we came back with my mother to England. I also regret not being educated
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in India.” She talks about her family with pride. Her parents were both from Cornwall. Her father worked as a mining engineer in India from the age of 18 until retirement, her mother was a teacher. “My sister and I came back to UK with my mother to go to school but we went to India for holidays until I was in my mid-teens. I went to Truro High School and then joined the WRNS as a Weapon Analyst in 1970. I became a Leading Wren and then in 1973 I went
to the Royal Naval College Greenwich on a promotion course and became a Third Officer, WRNS. I trained as a Secretarial Officer and subsequently did some further training to become a Weapon Analyst Officer serving in England and Scotland.” Catching a glimpse of a family portrait I ask about her children. She tells me she has three daughters, one of which, Melloney, is a junior doctor working in Tunbridge Wells Hospital and moving, in August, to St Thomas’s in London. “She is currently house-sitting our home in London with our youngest daughter,” she adds. The youngest daughter, Joanne, works for British Airways on a Graduate Trainee Scheme in Human Resources at Heathrow. Then there is Clare, a special needs teaching assistant, who is starting training in September to be a Speech and Language Therapist. She lives in Guildford with her partner Laurent. And finally her eldest, son James, an accountant with Deloittes in London, married to Tamarind who is an art teacher in Guildford. They have a baby called Arthur who was born in January. Suzie proudly points out her first grandchild’s photo — ‘Arthur Rawlyn Hetherington-Johns’ — quite a mouthful! It is clear that family is important to her, not only as a daughter and mother but also as a wife — her love for her husband is tangible, and they seem a devoted and “in love” couple. But how did they meet? “I met Adrian in May 1975 at HMS Excellent in Portsmouth, where I was the Officer-inCharge of the Gunnery Data Reduction Unit, and he was a junior officer under training. We married in New Year 1976 in Cornwall.” She adds “I saw him first, he probably did not notice me at that very moment, but I knew he was the one! “Adrian trained as a RN helicopter pilot and we were based in Cornwall just after our marriage. The only foreign posting other than Gibraltar was to Hong Kong where Adrian was the Commanding Officer of a patrol boat called HMS Yarnton from 1981-1983. We loved it out there and have gone back frequently as our daughter, Clare (who was born there), has taught English as a foreign language there so we took the opportunity to go and visit while she was teaching. “Hong Kong was followed by Portland in Dorset. Subsequently most of Adrian’s other appointments have been at sea, though he did come ashore as Training Commander at HMS Raleigh, and he had several appointments in the Ministry of Defence in London. His final appointment was as the Second Sea Lord and Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command when we lived in Admiralty House in HM Naval Base, Portsmouth. While he was doing this he was also the Head of the Fleet Air Arm.” Despite this Suzie says “We have a very normal family life. We are very involved with the children and our grandson.”
HE and Lady Johns put on their Wellington boots and in the pouring rain moved the boxes themselves and saved the consignment GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE • JUNE 2010