District Governor Sue Charles was born in England as the daughter of a regular British Army officer and lived in various parts of the world, including Austria, Mauritius and Kenya, with regular trips back to England. She was educated, as a boarder, at Loreto Convent in Nairobi, Kenya with her further education in England and language school in Switzerland, where she studied French and Spanish.

Sue accompanied her parents, when they immigrated to South Africa where she met and married her Cape Town born husband, Keith. They initially lived in Cape Town, where their daughter, Vanessa, was born and then moved to Gauteng, where their son, Adrian was born. After spending fourteen years in, what is now Sandton, they relocated back to Cape Town, where Keith eventually took early retirement as General Sales Manager of Cadbury, to open his own business. She spent the last sixteen years of her working career as an administrator at Pam Golding Properties.

Sue always had a social conscience, but it was only after she was widowed at age 54, and approached by first Alex Festorazzi and subsequently Franklin Samson, joined Kirstenbosch Lions in 2004, never believing that ten years later she would be District Governor.

Although Lions takes up a large portion of her time, Sue still manages to play social bridge, reads extensively, enjoys hiking, gardening and is passionate about wildlife and the environment.