Siouxsie was born Susan Janet Ballion on 27 May 1957 at Guy's Hospital in Southwark, England. She is ten years younger than her two siblings. Her brother and sister were born while the family was in the Belgian Congo. Her parents met in that colony and worked there for a few years. Her mother, Betty, was of Scottish and English descent and was a secretary who spoke both French and English. Her father was a bacteriologist who milked venom from snakes, and hailed from Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium. In the mid-1950s, before Siouxsie's birth, the family moved to England.