She has been teaching music since the age of 14. She studied in Tasmania and at the Royal College of Music in London. She was introduced to Buddhism by Trevor not long after they first met. Trevor and Suzanne attended Vegan Society meetings where they became friends with Fred Whittle and John Fairbrass. The meetings moved from the Theosophical Society to the Mary Street Buddhist House. Suzanne went there for the first time to investigate Buddhism on March 16th 1987. She was taught by Venerable Dhammika who presented the Dhamma with clarity and logic.

She saw the need for a Dhamma school for children, but was at first met with quite a lot of opposition, the western excuse often being “children should find their own way to Buddhism when they are older, and not pushed into it when they are still young”.

Disagreeing strongly, she persuaded some experienced Buddhists to teach the children during the adults’ Dhamma Talks. Later, Suzanne was persuaded also to start teaching. As the classes became popular, Satish Wimalajeeva became the convenor and held the position for many years before retiring and passing the honour to Suzanne.

After completing his M.Ed. in the psychology coursework area and tutoring part-time, his mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, so Gary became her full-time carer; more recently he was fortunate to have the chance to show some gratitude by caring for Laurence who is now in a nursing home with vascular dementia. Gary has served on BSV committee as non-office bearer as well as secretary.

Garry teaches Parli and has assisted in editing books relating to Parli grammar including Duroiselle’s Parli Grammar: A New Edition of ‘A Practical Grammar of the Pali Language’. He has also teaches beginner Parli lessons at BSV.

Children teach us, Gary says, because of their attitude. Instead of saying, like some of their elders, dejectedly “it is all downhill from here,” they often react to the same circumstance enthusiastically with: “it does not get any better than this!”