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16 Facts About Susan Barrantes

1.

Susan Mary Barrantes was a documentary filmmaker and the mother of Sarah, Duchess of York, as well as the maternal grandmother of princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

2.

Susan Barrantes died in a car crash at the age of 61.

3.

Susan Barrantes was the youngest of four children, with two sisters, Brigid and Davinia, and a brother, Bryan.

4.

Susan Barrantes's father was a director of the coal and iron-producing Butterley Company in Ripley, Derbyshire, and was the great-grandson of industrialist and philanthropist Francis Wright.

5.

Susan Barrantes Wright completed school and for a short time attended secretarial college.

6.

On 17 January 1956, Susan Barrantes married Lieutenant Ronald Ferguson at St Margaret's, Westminster.

7.

Susan Barrantes rose to the rank of Major, played polo with the Duke of Edinburgh, and became the polo manager for Charles, the Prince of Wales.

8.

Ronald and Susan Barrantes had two daughters: Jane Louisa, born on 26 August 1957, and Sarah Margaret, later known as the Duchess of York, born on 15 October 1959.

9.

In 1972, Susan caused a stir in society circles by leaving her family to move to Argentina with professional polo player Hector Barrantes.

10.

Susan Barrantes's daughters were then raised by their father Ronald with the help of extended family.

11.

Susan Barrantes assisted her husband's business of breeding polo ponies and cattle until his death from cancer in 1990.

12.

Susan Barrantes remained firm friends with Prince Charles, who contributed a foreword to her book Polo.

13.

The driver of the truck, Jose Maria Rodriguez, suffered a broken ankle, but Susan Barrantes was not wearing a safety belt and was decapitated, aged 61.

14.

Susan Barrantes had been involved in a road traffic crash the year before when her car flipped an estimated seven times.

15.

Susan Barrantes is buried beside her second husband in a vault beneath her home, next to a polo field on the "El Pucara" estate in Tres Lomas, Argentina.

16.

Susan Barrantes's death came just one year after that of her daughter's former sister-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales, whose funeral Susan and Sarah had both attended.