Credit Management January February 2022

“On my first day I was still sitting
at my desk at 18:00 when my boss,
Peter Coke – an early mentor –
asked me why I was still there. It was
because I was waiting for someone
to give me permission to go!”
SUE CHAPPLE FCICM always
wanted to be a teacher. She
distinctly remembers a school
report when she was around
five that read: ‘Sue would do
better concentrating on her
own work rather than supervising the
class’.
Born in Wolverhampton, Sue’s family
moved to Sidmouth when she was three
and she has lived in Devon ever since.
Her father was an accountant and always
on the move, so much so that Sue went
to 12 different schools in as many years:
“Sometimes he’d move mid-way through a
term, and I had to start at a new school still
wearing my previous school’s uniform,”
she remembers.
For anyone who always sees the glass as
half empty, that would have been tough,
but fortunately Sue’s glass has always
been half full: “Yes it was difficult, but it
made me good at making small talk and
fitting in, and generally not being afraid
of people or situations.”
CAREERS’ ADVICE
Lacking any serious careers’ advice,
beyond being told to learn how to type,
Sue left school after CSE’s with one
principal objective: to earn money. “I’d
worked in a local fruit and veg shop and
liked earning money,” she explains.
In Sue’s mind, finding permanent
employment meant one of two things,
either to join a bank, or the Royal Air
Force! In the event she applied to all of the
local banks and was offered a job by five
of them, opting to join the TSB as a junior
clerk. She was 16.
“I remember the sound of the clock
ticking in the huge boardroom and the
permanent smell of polish,” she laughs.
“I also remember a crash in the banking
hall and being told Mrs Littlejohn had
dropped a jar of piccalilli and to get a mop
and bucket. It’s so funny to think of it now.
“On my first day I was still sitting at my
desk at 18:00 when my boss, Peter Coke
– an early mentor – asked me why I was
still there. It was because I was waiting for
someone to give me permission to go!”
It was at the TSB that the serious
business of studying towards her banking
qualification began. It was, in Sue’s words,
a real slog, but the studying paid off and
she was soon rising through the ranks,
Brave | Curious | Resilient / www.cicm.com / January & February 2022 / PAGE 21 continues on page 22 >