Joan Adams 1921 – 2007The following is from the address at Joan’s funeral given by Revd David Burgess:
Joan, always known as Joan although her full name was Dorothy Joan Adams, was born in Buckinghamshire and lived in Bucks all her life. Swan Bottom was her home from when she was a girl until, in later years, she could live there no longer and moved to Abbeyfield House, and later Winterton House in Wendover. The only other period she lived away was in the Second World War when she joined the Women’s Land Army and was sent to Taplow and then Slough.
Joan’s father returned from the First World War but died in 1925 during the flu epidemic when Joan was four years old. She had two brothers, one of whom died as a child and the second who was killed during the Second World War.
Joan went to the village school and when her turn came would have liked to take the 11 Plus but was unable to do so because her mother could not afford the uniform for the next school. She started work for an elderly couple near her home, but when war broke out enlisted with the Land Army.
Life was not easy for a Land Girl in the early days. Joan’s first landlady made the girls sleep two to a single bed and in the morning cooked one egg and then cut it up for two to share. Joan would laugh about this, in the way that she often saw the funny side of things. The rather rickety bus, which ran just twice a week during the war, she jokingly called ‘the corned beef tin’.
When news of her brother’s death was rung through to Joan in Slough, after she had gone to bed, Joan insisted on getting on her bike then and there and cycling home to be with her mother. After that she transferred to work more locally so that she could live at home, but returned to visit her friends in Slough at weekends when she would enjoy trips to the theatre at Windsor.
After the war Joan continued to live at Swan Bottom and she began many years of working at Kingswood House, for first the Darricott and later the Dowson family. She loved the outdoor life and working with all kinds of animals.
We remember most of all Joan’s positive attitude to life, her sense of humour and her love and loyal support for her friends and family who all miss her at this time.
Friends of Joan also want it remembered that she was a stalwart of the (now defunct) Lee Darby and Joan Club: Ed.