Joyce's Story

Hello everybody, I’m Joyce and I work part-time in the hospital shop with Sylvie.

I’ve already written a profile, now here’s a potted history about myself.

I was born in Giggleswick, North Yorkshire which boasts the likes of Russell Harty and Richard Whitely amongst its superstars but they’re both dead now.

I was a war baby, mother gave up her nursing job when she was expecting me but she signed up to the Women’s Voluntary Service and did her bit during the war. There were many women like her, ready to be called upon night or day.

My parents took in two sisters evacuated from London. They doted on me and didn’t want to go back home. Parties were held in the village hall to keep up morale where everyone would pitch in and make cakes and lemonade with their rations. Mother said the war brought out the best in folk.

Father worked on the local newspaper but he didn’t sign up because he was a conscientious objector. His articles caused quite a stir but he stuck to his principles even though it made him a bit of an outsider with the locals. He always had a hankering for the stage and was a grand tap dancer.

Sidney was born just after the war ended. Father was delighted to have a son but mother said she’d have preferred another girl. She’d often dress Sidney in pink which turned a few heads whenever they went out.

My parents began to drift apart and their arguments became more frequent with time. Father would stay out all night and I would hear mother crying herself to sleep. Sidney would come into my bed and snuggle up, he didn’t get much affection from mother.

Not long after, my parents separated and father moved to London to work in the theatre where he had lots of friends. It was a saddening day when he said goodbye and drove off down the lane. It was pouring down and I was soaked right through but I carried on waving until I couldn’t tell the rain from my tears.

Flora Crabtree was our kind-hearted neighbour who had blonde hair and smoked cigarettes, she had a look of Betty Grable about her. She took in Sidney as mother couldn’t cope, and she was drinking heavily at the time. They were difficult years but you learn to whistle past graveyard.

We weren’t allowed contact with father but Flora used to read the odd letter to us on the quiet. He’d talk about the bright lights of London and all the glamourous folk he’d met from the theatre world.

He missed his kids terribly and wanted Flora to bring us down for a weekend but mother would never have allowed it, she’d only refer to him as ‘That Mary Ellen’, so I knew we stood no chance of seeing him any time soon.

A couple of years on, we got news that father had died in a freak accident. He’d danced his way into the orchestra pit, landing head-first into a tuba. It was a terrible shock to us all.

His friend Raymond drove up from London with some of father’s personal belongings but mother refused to let him in, she took the parcel and went into her room and cried for days.

Many years later, after mother had passed away, I was sorting through her things and found a photo of father with the words ‘In loving memory of my dear husband’ inscribed on the silver frame. It was wrapped inside her old wedding veil, it just goes to show that she never stopped loving him.

The odd thing is, when I look back at my childhood, I can’t remember loving mother very much but I respected her. She was always tired and mithering and probably worried about money. But we saw a softer side to her as she became frail with age. I suppose she no longer had to worry about protecting us and was able to show her love rather than hide it.

Sylvie thinks I’m a bit of a cold fish but she’s wrong. I’ve been known to shed a tear at ‘60 Minute Makeover’. But I wouldn’t want them round at mine, I don’t want to come home and find my knick-knacks in a skip.

Anyway, back to my story… more career opportunities opened up for women in the 1950s and I looked towards working in publishing, but I was offered a typist’s job at Rochdale Town Hall through my Uncle Fred. Mother said it offered better financial security, so we packed up and moved there.

Flora married her ex-G.I boyfriend who had got back in touch and she moved to Ohio, so Sidney moved in with us. He tried his best to get along with mother but it was a hard slog though they became closer when he nursed her during through her final year.

What a waste of all that love but they got there in the end.

Sidney was a Postmaster until he took early retirement. There aren’t many sub-post offices about these days. Pension day was like a social event at his place, he’d make the old folk a brew and I’d bake a batch of cakes to pass along the queue. I made a rod for my own back as they started to put in orders each week.

I should mention Ted, I suppose. We met on the buses where he was a conductor and always gave me a free ride. It wasn’t long before we got engaged. I just went along with it really but he was quite charming in his own way and a right Bobby Dazzler in his uniform.

It was a small wedding. I made my own dress from a Simplicity pattern, it was satin-look and had pearl drops hanging from the lace trim. I didn’t wear a veil, just flowers on a comb. I remember how it dug into my head all day.

Princess Margaret got married the month before. She looked like a film star and her dress was out of this world, I saw it on a Vogue pattern in Kendals but it was too late to run it up by then.

I also made our wedding cake, it was a Dundee mix with white icing and pink roses on top. It was only the one tier, mind. I expect Princess Margaret had a couple more.

We held the reception back at the house and put on a nice spread. It was a grand do and we sang around the piano as Aunty Beryl played show tunes. We’d never seen mother dance before, she got merry on Babycham and did the Charleston.

Then she tripped over the hearth rug and landed on Uncle Fred’s wooden leg but he didn’t mind and we all had a good laugh about it.

Ted took me to Morecambe for our honeymoon, and every year after that. It wasn’t a very exciting marriage but we bobbed along like most folk do. We always booked the same caravan and I cooked and cleaned up after him in my usual fashion. It was like living at home but with melamine plates.

I enjoyed our breezy walks along the promenade while eating cockles and whelks from small tubs. On our last night, we’d go to our favourite seafront chippy for a fish supper and a pot of tea. We’d have fresh cod in golden batter and chips that were hot and crunchy with plenty of salt and vinegar. Ted always spoiled his with too much tomato sauce, I thought.

A few years down the line, we had a beautiful daughter called Constance, she had bright blue eyes and a mop of red curls but we lost her to whooping cough when she was ten months old. It was a heart-breaking time and Ted took it very badly while I kept busy by going back to work.

He became angry with the world and had to give up the buses, they said he was a liability. It was a nervous breakdown really. They call it ‘clinical depression’ nowadays and pop you on Channel Five. But we didn’t have ‘Trisha’ back then, you just had a cup of tea and hoped for the best.

The long and short of it is our marriage became an existence. We slept in separate bedrooms and we’d speak but we didn’t talk. One day he came back from the pub, packed his bags and moved into the bedsit above Valerie Ashcroft’s dry cleaners.

I came home and found some money in an envelope and a note with his new address. He ended our marriage with ‘Regards, Ted’ but I felt nothing by that point except relief. It was more lonely living with him than without him.

Anyway, as Molly Chadwick says, ‘There are lots of sunny days in autumn’, and she’s not wrong.

I don’t go short of company, Sidney lives up the road in a smart Tudor bungalow, he never married but he’s happy with his lot. We both belong to the drama group and get involved with charities and the mobile library, so we keep ourselves occupied.

And I have my cat Bella, who’s still a bit jumpy since she got her tail stuck up the Hoover. I have to use the carpet sweeper and it takes twice as long but it’s only until she’s off the sedatives.

I enjoy working at the hospital shop and have been there for four years now. Sylvie is a good friend to me, even though we fight like cat and dog at times, but I slip her the occasional iced finger which soon calms her down.

She’s just joined Molly’s dating agency, so I’m sure she’ll tell you more about last week’s wine and cheese do. I admire Sylvie’s ‘get up and go’, I had that once and sometimes wonder how things might have been had my life taken another turn.

Sylvie idolises her Clint. He’s a kind soul but doesn’t always go about things the right way. He tried to raise money for PDSA by going vegetarian for the day but he only lasted ten minutes. He forgot himself and ate a Cornish pasty but the thought was there.

I best finish up, Ivy’s got a face as long as a yard of gravy, she has a casserole on the go and forgot to put the timer on.

As I said to her, it’ll have dried out by now.

It was nice chatting to you all. Sylvie’s back next week, so I’ll see you after.

God bless, Joyce. xx