Notes


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	Joe and Jeremy in China(above) and Joe about to go to China (left)

		Joan Marion (Joe) was born in 1920 just before her Father went to China. Her Mother Gladys (Guy) followed him out when Joe was two. She had a wonderful life out there until having to come back to England for school and by all accounts hated boarding (She attended Lowther and Roedean)


	She told us about her trips out for holidays on the transiberian express, some two weeks journey, washing in steaming cauldrons on the platform with both the Russians and the Chinese using the train as a troop train, each side getting out and in at the border. Being an international train it was never attacked.




		Joe as teenager in China


	She came back with the family in 1936 and shortly after volunteered for service in the WAAF where she often worked night duty at Stanmore, the headquarters for plotting incoming German raids during the battle of Britain. She had many fights with her younger sister Jill over silk stockings which both parties would bring up in later life whenever they met.




	Her brother notes: “I was at boarding school when I heard that Ambrose Rogers (my cousin via Great Aunt Una Elsie) had proposed to Joe on top of a bus at the Edinburgh Festival. I was not there but I know they went to their wedding on a bus. (well they were austere times)


	She met a delightful Irish fighter pilot, Billy Gordon and they married around 1943, sadly he crashed in 1944 whilst training another young pilot. Apparently they looped the loop in a spitfire too close to the ground and went straight in. Joe was desolated but bravely took on Nursing Training after the war, but it did not suit her see picture below (middle).



			Joe left before her wedding to Ambrose

		She was an authoress, devoted to writing childrens books and she often read them to me. I thought they were magical and several were published. I hope her daughters have copies. Now a full time wife she looked after Ambrose and her two children Jane and Petra. She was a mystical and spirtual person, often saying things like “but what is love” which threw me completely as a young man, especially as I could not answer. She liked to meditate and I know she tried yoga to find peace. I am not sure if she found it ? Maybe her children could answer that?”


	We hope to have some views on her life by her daughters shortly.


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