Sue Mallinson

Sue Mallinson (b. Derby, Derbyshire, 16 February 1943)

Sue Mallinson is the working name of Susan Elizabeth Mallinson, the second child of Richard Vincent Mallinson (1911-2005) and his wife Mary Ruth ("Molly") Hembry (1914-2006), who were married in Romford, Essex, in late 1935. Sue had an older sister, and two younger brothers, one of whom died in infancy. 

Sue Mallinson worked for BBC television from 1965 to 1988. She was trained as a film director, and worked as Series Producer for a number of programmes, notably on The Book Programme (1977-1979). After she left the BBC she formed her own production company, whose most notable productions include Opera Imaginaire (1993), a fifty-odd minute assembly of animated shorts of famous arias (viewable on youtube here). Mallinson also directed a nearly one-hour documentary for the ITV "Network First" series, titled Entertaining Angels Unawares (broadcast 19 December 1995), covering the history of angels from the point of view of clergymen, scientists, and of people who claim to have encountered angels. Entertaining Angels Unawares is also viewable on youtube, at Mallinson's daughter's channel here. 

She published one novel, The Serpent and the Burrerfly (London: Robert Hale, 1980). She wrote it over seven years during her annual leave at a cottage in Dorset. The dust-wrapper blurb reads:

Lisa Covington is tired of living in London and the superficiality of her work as a journalist. Restless, she takes a six months' sabbatical and moves to the West Country. On her first evening, she and her gypsy dog Imp go for a walk on the moors and are drawn towards a giant Menhir, upon whose face is the ancient carving of a Serpent. The great stone gives Lisa an uneasy feeling and inexplicably she shudders. Just then a butterfly lands upon a small pebble at her feet which takes on a strange purplish glow. Thus the Ancient Forces of good and evil are unleashed and Lisa is propelled into a strange world of magic and mystery where she finds love, danger and a new way of life. Ghosts, psychic forces and witchcraft  abound in this romantic story, blending together to form an unusual and fascinating look into the occult.

The book is very rare today, and Mallinson wrote a sequel, Atlantis Reborn, which has never been published. Mallinson married David Roach, and they had one daughter born around 1983.  Mallinson's production company was dissolved in 2015, when she was living in Ipswich, Suffolk. 

 

(L to R) Sue Mallinson, her grandchild, and her daughter, Amity Roach, c. 2020