Joy and I were cousins, and there was 15 years difference in our ages.  When she got married I was a bridesmaid at her wedding at the age of 7 or 8.
I believe that when she left school she worked for a while at Wades, a large Dept Store in Brighton, but she went on to become a Machinist at the South Coast Button company in Grand Parade Brighton.  When I got older and was in my teens, we saw more of each other. She loved needleworking and I would go and visit her on many occasions and she would spend hours making for me, the dresses popular at the time, full skirts with starched net petticoats underneath!  Then in later years, when women started wearing trousers on a regular basis, we would make Crimplene trouser suits! I was no needlewomen so Joy did most of the work!
Joy and Des her husband initially lived in a flat above the Button co, where she worked. The flat didn’t have its own front door, so at night the 3 floors below were in darkness and very creepy.  I remember one night when I was there, we heard a noise downstairs and terrified we made a search of the lower floors, but found nothing! The other thing was, that the only toilet was in the basement and I was always very scared to go down there, so didn’t use to drink very much on the nights I visited! Joy was often alone in the evenings as Des worked nights, so she was always glad of the company.
When Jacqui came along, I would babysit for them which went towards repaying Joyce for all the needleworking she had done for me.  Jackie must have been a very good baby, as I don’t remember any occasions when I had to deal with a fractious child!
In the sixties, they joined a self build project to buy their own home, and at some time in that decade, when the house was completed, they moved to Uplands Road, in Hollingdean.
I would still go and visit Joy on a regular basis, and when I had a steady boyfriend at 16, we would both go and spend the evening there. One evening all three of us we watching TV and a face appeared at the lounge window.  Someone had to be in the back garden – it wasn’t somewhere anyone would just pass by.  Keith, my boyfriend, ran after him but unfortunately didn’t catch him. Joyce was very nervous about being at home alone for a long time after that.
When I left school I went to work in the Ministry of Health, at the Artificial Limb and Appliance Centre which was part of the Civil Service.  It hadn’t opened very long and after I had been there for a few weeks, the Manager decided he needed some temporary Staff for a few weeks work.  I knew Joy was out of work and looking for a job, so I put her name forward. He immediately suggested I go with him to see her! (I don’t think she had a phone then).  So we went in his car, he had a quick chat with her and she started work for a 4 week period the following day. Some 40 years later she retired having become the Manager there, some years previous!
There were two things neither of us forgot though.  Most older Brightonians, will remember the 8th December 1967, the day of the big snow. Joyce and I were both at work at the ALAC that day, and we were given permission to leave work to go to Western Road to cash our wages cheques ( no bank cards then!). It had started snowing around 10.30, but only lightly.  We left to catch the bus about 11.30.  The snow became heavier and heavier as we got nearer the town.  We got off the bus and cashed our cheques, but by 12.30, Western Road was paralysed.  Cars, taxis and buses were stuck around the Clock tower and people were abandoning them.  Nothing was moving.  It happened so quickly that it caught everyone unawares.
We decided we would have to walk back to work.  It took us around 2 hours to get as far as the Norfolk pub in Grand Parade where we stopped for a rest.  As I remember it, we were wearing stiletto shoes which everyone did then and a headscarf on our head above our bouffant hairdo’s!  The people in the pub, looked as us incredulously with the snow encrusted in our hair and all down our coats. They had obviously been there all lunch time, and had no idea of the conditions.  Neither of us ever forgot that day and have often reminisced about it. We phoned work from the pub and the Manager said he had sent everyone home and we should make our home way too. Many people took strangers into their home that day, and gave then a bed for the night. Our Deputy Manager was given a bed for the night and someone else we knew walked all the way home to Newhaven, getting there at 9 at night.  Brighton was cut off for 3-4 days. We eventually got home to Coombe Road about 4 in the afternoon.
In my 8 years at the ALAC with Joyce, and another friend Lyn Nicholls, we had numerous staff parties there, 2 -3 times a year.  We had a large waiting area and snack counter (ideal for a bar).  We became experts at making and serving party food.  I can’t remember what we did about the alcohol
(ie whether we just bought our own or sold it there), but there was always plenty flowing!  It was natural therefore, then when I got married in 1976, Joy and Lyn prepared and served the food.  Fabulous it was too!   
I left the ALAC in 1973 on promotion, and although I went back for parties etc to begin with, once I started having children, I did not see Joyce very regularly, until I moved to Uplands Road.
Initially I used to see Joy and she would stop and have a chat as she passed in her car. Then I started doing our family tree and was contacted by a long lost relative who wanted to meet Joyce her sister Pam and myself and I arranged a meeting. Once we had made contact again, I used to see both Joy and Pam more regularly.  After Pam sadly passed away, Joy used to come for Sunday lunch every few months and we would talk on the phone on a regular basis or stop for a chat in the street when she passed in her car.
Joy wasn’t one to ask for help, but in the last few years, she had a couple of falls ( she would dispute they were both falls- one was a ‘slip’ due to Sainsburys negligence! ) and we did start to do a few things for her and this led to her coming to us for lunch every few months.  She was very proud and only very reluctantly would ask for help and would insist, and I mean insist, that she paid you for it.