Sue Davis (later Sue Sullivan; Sue Fitzgerald from 2020) · The Up Series, 7 to 70
Sue's through-line is the quiet rebuttal of a prediction. Filmed at seven as one of three East End girls destined for early marriage, she was in fact the last of them to marry (at 24) and the one whose divorce (at 35) set up the rest of her life: two children raised alone, a council flat she eventually bought, decades of office work, and a slow climb — with no degree — to running postgraduate administration at Queen Mary's law school. Glenn arrived around 42 and stayed, through an engagement so long it became her running joke, until a proposal written in the sand in Goa and a wedding at 64. Where Jackie fought the film and Lynn ignored it, Sue treated it as simply her life, useful precisely because it was ordinary; by the 2026 finale she is retired to Essex, newly married, recently bereaved of both parents, and proud — but ready for it to end.
Age 7 · 1964 · Seven Up!
Sue is the sunny one of the East End trio. Seven Up! treats her, like her friends, as a working-class girl whose life is already mapped out.
- Selected from an East End primary school with classmates Jackie and Lynn; the three are questioned together about boyfriends, marriage and the future.
- Lively, sociable child; the film's assumption for all three is early marriage and domesticity.
Age 14 · 1970 · 7 Plus Seven
A cheerful comprehensive-school teenager, conciliatory in the group interview while Lynn is prickly. No sign yet of ambition beyond the ordinary.
- At a comprehensive school with Jackie (Lynn is at grammar school).
- Speaks well of the co-educational curriculum — girls doing metalwork and woodwork.
- Apted warns the three of the "danger" of marrying young and being stuck at home.
Age 21 · 1977 · 21 Up
At 21 Sue is the free one: unmarried, in an office job, saving for Australia, unbothered by the interviewer's either/or of career versus marriage. She takes the film's questions lightly where Jackie takes them hard.
I think we all could have gone any way we wanted at that time, within our own capabilities.
- Still single — the only one of the three not yet married.
- Works for a travel company handling group bookings and incentive holidays; does the typing but shrugs off the 'career girl' label.
- Planning two months in Australia with a friend — "if we don't go now we never will".
- Says she is not especially ambitious and will probably marry eventually.
- Agrees with Jackie that the three have had the opportunities they wanted.
Age 28 · 1984 · 28 Up
Sue has taken the conventional path later than her friends: married at 24, a young son, no job. 28 Up shows her contented and, as ever, given little individual screen time.
- Married at 24 (1980) to Billy Sullivan; gave up work to raise a family.
- One child, a son, by 28.
- Interviewed with Jackie and Lynn in a living room; the three are still presented as a set.
Age 35 · 1991 · 35 Up
The marriage is over and Sue is raising two children alone and working again. It is the film in which she first talks about class honestly — her optimism about choice at 21 gives way to clear-eyed realism.
We only had a limited choice anyway, truth be told. We didn't have the choice of private education because they couldn't have afforded it.
- Divorced (marriage ended c. 1991); now a single mother of two — a son and a daughter born after 28 Up.
- Back at work in London, commuting by train; smartly dressed, socialising with other divorced mothers.
- Revises her view from 21: the East End girls only ever had a limited choice, because their parents could not have paid for private education.
- Hopes for better educational chances for her own children.
Age 42 · 1998 · 42 Up
42 Up catches Sue at the turn: money and single parenthood are hard, but Glenn has appeared and she is singing in public. From here her line rises steadily.
I worked all my life, I can't imagine not working.
- Single mother supporting her family alone; speaks of the fulfilment her two children give her.
- Has met a new partner, Glenn (c. 1998) — the relationship that will last the rest of the series.
- Filmed singing karaoke in a pub, watched intently by a man — the film's hopeful note for her.
- Working in office administration; says she has worked all her life and cannot imagine not working.
- The council helped her into a flat after the divorce, which she later bought.
Age 49 · 2005 · 49 Up
The working-class girl who was expected to be a housewife now runs the administration of a university law school. 49 Up frames her as the trio's success story — steady job, steady partner, grown children.
I was born for the responsibility.
- Promoted to principal administrator for postgraduate courses at the School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London — without ever having been to university herself.
- Living with Glenn; engaged but in no hurry to marry.
- Children grown; the film asks whether she has finally found a stable life.
Age 56 · 2012 · 56 Up
Content and busy: a law-school administrator, a 14-year fiancée, a performer in her spare time. Sue is the East End participant whose life most cleanly refutes the film's 1964 predictions.
The longest engagement known to man.
- Still in senior administration at Queen Mary's law school.
- Engaged to Glenn for 14 years — "the longest engagement known to man".
- Both children independent; enjoys amateur dramatics and singing.
- Describes herself as working class, always working class, and thinks her ordinariness is what makes her useful to the film.
Age 63 · 2019 · 63 Up
The bubbliest participant at 63 is looking towards retirement with mild dread and a full life behind her. Sue's segment is the series' picture of an ordinary working-class woman who did fine.
Nothing has really changed, I'm still working for Queen Mary, 20 years under my belt.
We've been together now over 20 years, still not married, never say never... but no plans.
- Still at Queen Mary — "20 years under my belt"; compulsory retirement at 66 looming and she is unsure what comes after work.
- With Glenn for over 20 years, still not married: "never say never, but no plans".
- Both children have bought their own flats and have good jobs.
- Still does drama and singing; her dog appears in the film (producers wanted the dog cut; Apted kept it).
- Worries about the NHS and about the young; sees her council-estate upbringing as the last of its kind now homelessness is so widespread.
- Speaks about losing Lynn.
Age 70 · 2026 · 70 Up
The finale gives Sue the ending she declined for twenty years — a wedding — plus retirement, Essex, and a late run of caring for her parents. She closes the series as its steadiest working-class woman, amused rather than angry at what it once expected of her.
Glenn decided he's fed up of being on the longest engagement of all time.
He really thought we'd all be housewives and maybe not particularly interesting.
I'm full of pride because I do recognise it's an achievement.
- Married Glenn at last: he proposed on a beach in Goa, writing "Will you marry me?" in the sand; they wed in Devon in late 2020 when she was 64, with her parents present — ending an engagement of more than two decades.
- Retired from Queen Mary University of London after around 25 years in administration; now Sue Fitzgerald, living in Gidea Park near Romford, Essex.
- Spent much of the previous seven years caring for her elderly parents (her mother bedridden); both died in their early nineties, two years apart.
- Travels regularly to Goa with Glenn, has taken up the gym, and says she is finding retirement "quite difficult" after a lifetime of work.
- Reflects with Jackie on Apted's 1964 assumptions about the girls and says she is proud of the series and thinks it is a good time to finish.
Turning points
- Age 24: Marriage to Billy Sullivan (1980) and leaving work to raise children — the conventional path, taken later than her friends.
- Age 35: Divorce (c. 1991); single mother of two, back to work — the pivot that makes her the self-supporting careerist of the trio.
- Age 42: Meets Glenn (c. 1998); the karaoke scene marks the emotional turn upward.
- Age 49: Promotion to principal administrator at Queen Mary's School of Law without a degree — the series' clearest case of a working-class girl outrunning its predictions.
- Age 64: Marries Glenn (late 2020) after a 20-plus-year engagement; retires from Queen Mary and moves to Essex before 70 Up.
Looking back
What people say
Sue is the clearest of the three girls to outrun the prediction: the last to marry, divorced at thirty-five, she raised two children alone and without a degree rose to run the postgraduate administration of a law school at Queen Mary.
The karaoke scene at forty-two is one of the happiest moments in the series.
Engaged for more than twenty years, proposed to on a beach in Goa at sixty-four. Jackie fought the films, Lynn ignored them; Sue treated them as her life.
What this life shows
A divorce can be a beginning, not only an end.
Divorced at thirty-five, back to work, and from there step by step upwards; the later marriage was a bonus, not a rescue. A divorced mother is still marked down in the dating market. Sue's life is an example of coming through without remarrying to do it.
Rising without a degree takes time and an institution.
She climbed inside one university to the top of its law-school administration. Internal promotion in a large institution is the most realistic route up for people without credentials, and flexible work is dismantling it.
Happiness comes back in the second half.
The forties were hardest; the sixties and seventies the calmest, and not only for her: Tony and Paul too.