Journalist Susanna Gross dies from cancer aged 58

Michael Gove MP, editor of The Spectator, wrote that Gross “never failed” to entertain in her column. She played the game “expertly, and with panache,” he said, but “formidable as her skills at the table were, she was even more accomplished as a writer. And an unforgettable friend.”

He said Gross was “rapier sharp and witty, but also unaffectedly warm and loving, unsparingly honest, not least about herself, and unsparingly generous with her time for others,” and she bore her illness “with great humour and bravery.”

Susanna Gross, right, with Michael Gove and Susanna’s brother Tom, a contributor to the JC[Missing Credit]

Born in London, Gross was educated at Godolphin and the University of York.

She leaves her husband, novelist and journalist John Preston, and children Joseph and Milly. Her brother, Tom, is a journalist and international affairs commentator (and occasional JC contributor).

Both of Gross’s parents, Miriam, 87, and John, were also formerly literary editors and her father John was known as one of England’s last great “men of letters”. Her stepfather, Sir Geoffrey Owen, 91, was the editor of the Financial Times. Her grandparents, Kurt May and Vera Feinberg, fled Nazi Germany to pre-state Israel where her mother was born, and many of her relatives were murdered in the Holocaust.

Her brother Tom Gross told the JC “Susanna was a very special person. She had a joie de vivre that was infectious.”

“She had an array of devoted friends who adored her, and she was still very active, smiling and in good spirits until a couple of weeks ago when her condition took a dramatic turn for the worse.”

“It can sometimes be difficult when one has two highly successful and distinguished parents to carve out a niche for oneself and Susanna managed to do this with her remarkable achievements at bridge in addition, of course, to her literary journalism.

“She made a mark at the highest international level – world champion Zia Mahmood was among those who said he enjoyed playing with her.”

“And while she regularly played bridge with friends in the literary world – among them Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser – what she was most passionate about was playing at professional tournaments with fellow bridge addicts.”