Sue Highton, president

Sue Highton, a 55-year-old nurse, has been elected president of UNISON - the highest lay position in the union. She was previously vice-president and has been a member of UNISON for 32 years. She will hold the position for one year.

Sue was born and brought up in Sheffield, where she still lives today. She left school at the age of 15 on a Friday afternoon, and was working in Woolworths by Monday morning. Sue started in the NHS in 1975 as a domestic at Grenoside General Hospital and, following her fatherÍs advice, sought out her union rep as soon as she got there. She became a NUPE member three hours after her first shift began.

With three children under five, Sue worked evening shifts. She became an active member after a senior male steward gave her and other women with young children morning picket line shifts, and kept the comfortable afternoon shifts for himself. Sue reorganised the picket line duty and was elected a shop steward soon afterwards, with her now assistant branch secretary Jean Boswell.

Sue said: 'I love my work at Sheffield care trust. The staff and our members deliver a fantastic service to mental health patients and to those with learning difficulties. My post has always been with learning disability services. The patients are not service users, but become part of your extended family.'

One of Sue's first priorities on becoming UNISON president is to support local government members in their strike action on 16 and 17 July over pay. She will also be devoting some of her time to the African Heart Foundation project, a charity which funds heart operations for people across Africa.

'In this country we often take our national health service for granted', said Sue, In Africa, the vast majority of people who get heart disease are condemned to a slow and agonising death. Everybody deserves good health, and this project will go some way to making that ultimate goal possible.

When not working, Sue can often be found cooking a traditional Sunday dinner for her family of three boys and their seven grandchildren. One of her sons and his partner and three of her grandchildren are profoundly deaf, and Sue is fast becoming an expert in sign language. She is also a carer for her mother and father-in-law.

Africa Heart Foundation - leaflet

www.africaheartfoundation.org