The six-year-old had been named by the Christian couple to bring happiness to others.

But that day Joy saw only sorrow.

Her father, an RAF pilot, was killed in an accident while riding on the bonnet of a jeep.

He was 37 and peace had just been declared in Europe.

"My mum was devastated but at first she didn't show it," she says.

An official telegram came to their house in Camberley, Surrey, telling them the tragic news.

"We assumed it was about Uncle Jimmy who had been missing in action," she says. "But when Mum read it she went immediately into the next room."

Only the following day when Joy returned home from school with a paper-mache ashtray, saying 'This is for Daddy', could her mother reveal the truth.

Two days later another letter arrived - this time from her father.

"It was a record with his voice on - one side was for me and the other for my mum," she says.

But it was too much for her mother Ellen.

"For years Mum couldn't bring herself to listen to it," she says.

Her parents had grown up together as next-door neighbours.

Joy's father was a local barber and Ellen worked in-service.

"After all that had happened Mum was amazingly strong," she says.

They were helped by her faith taking Joy to the Brethren church.

"It was a family atmosphere," says Joy. "Everyone at the church became my uncles and aunties."

From that day on a special bond formed between mother and daughter - Ellen would fight to bring up her daughter and the working class girl would try to live up to the name she was given.

But although Joy was an only child, one of her mother's sisters was ill and from an early age their family took in her three daughters.

"The war spirit carried on with everyone looking after each other," says Joy. "Children were taken in and people took turns in queueing."

As the country began to rebuild after the Second World War, Ellen earned just enough money working, together with her war pension.

And Joy fulfilled her part of the deal too.

She did well in her 11+ exams and went to Frimley and Camberley County Grammar School.

"It was a bit of a surprise because I was a late developer," she says. "But Mum still had to earn extra money to buy the uniform."

At school she met other children from working class families including her husband-to-be Alan when she was 14.

"We were the first generation after the war to really get a chance and we spurred each other on," she says.

At 18 she went to Bletchley college in Buckinghamshire to learn to be a teacher.

But she admits she was a little daunted at first.

"I was terribly homesick and thought I could never leave my mum," she says.

In 1960 the young woman married, moved to Wimbledon and began her first appointment.

Joy had trained to teach juniors from 7-11 but her first position at Camberley School was with five-year-olds.

"I don't know who was more scared on the first day - them or me," she says.

She remembers the first few months being difficult.

"I was amazed at how good the other teachers were," she says. "When someone is having difficulties teachers close their ranks."

And with her colleagues' help Joy's career took off.

She taught at junior schools in London, taking time off to have her two children Anna and Alistair.

"I would have loved to have been involved in the flower power thing but I was having my children in the 60s," she says.

But the young mother was becoming more politically-minded and as well as helping charities like Shelter, she joined the CND and Amnesty International.

She got her first head position 17 years ago at a multi-cultural school in Croydon .

"There were a lot of social problems to deal with," she says. "I seemed to spend more time in parents' houses than in the classroom."

But Joy says she loved the new challenge.

"I got very involved in things like birth control - things you don't get in a middle class school," she says.

Joy's next challenge four years later was to smooth through the amalgamation of an infant and junior school.

"There was some resentment by staff to the move," she says. "They would look after their children in the playground and not speak to each other."

But when she left 10 years ago she felt it was united.

"People were choosing to send their children to that school rather than the one down the road," she says.

But it was a difficult time for her personally. By then she was experiencing difficulties in her marriage and the couple separated.

"I was at the crossroads of my life," she says. "I wanted a complete break and a new challenge."

Having spent her whole life in the south, she chose Cheshire to start a new life.

"I passed through Knutsford and fell for the place," she says. "I felt immediately at home as though I had lived here all my life."

She took up a headship at Oughtrington school in Lymm.

"I had always had this dream of becoming a village school mistress," she says.

By now Joy's grown-up children had started families of their own.

As a sign of how important her family were, the grandmother gave up her CND membership when son Ali joined the Army.

"I never watch any Army films," she says. "I think I am in denial because I don't like to think of the dangers."

But Joy was becoming more politically and socially conscious.

She joined the Labour Party in 1990 and became active in local groups MAP and ORCA.

"I immediately met a lot of friendly people who shared similar concerns as me," she says.

Three years ago Joy retired early at 58 to spend more time with her mother who had also moved to Knutsford.

"She loved the place too but she was getting a bit frail and I wanted to see her everyday."

But a year later her mother died.

"She died peacefully and I will always be glad to have been there in her last year," she says.

Her mother's death served to increase her socio-political activities and desire for new challenges.

Joy began visiting a prison in Styal, helping to organise drama classes for African women who get no visitors.

And less than a year ago she set up GROW.

"I wanted to do something but when they told me gardening it was a real test," she says. "I didn't know the first thing about it."

But eight months on the 60-year-old leads a team of volunteer gardeners, maintaining elderly people's gardens in Knutsford.

"I talk to them and feel I am part of their lives," she says. "They are like my surrogate mothers."

Today the Bexton School governor has little time for personal hobbies.

"I paint and love reading Dickens, Austen and Gaskell but I don't get much time to myself," she says.

But with every new challenge Joy is still trying to live up to her name.

"My mum had the biggest influnce on my life," she says. "She gave me a social conscience and helped everyone."

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.