Page 2 - HGS Suburb News 132 - Autumn 2017

Joan Sylvia Beales 1920-2017

Joan Waites was born in Kate and Peter Thurtle, who Families. This work was based workers trained in all areas of with daily swims at their local Residents’ Association. She also
Cambridge into a family that were to become regular holiday in Camberwell. Here she had the discipline. It was a close- pool, and started to travel. They continued to thrive on the
was well established in that city. companions; Edith and Morrie interesting colleagues in Joan knit department and Joan went on a few long-haul trips and cultural life in London and
Her father ran a tailoring business Finer; Gordon Brunton, later Sir Court and Eve Road. worked closely with Colin also took to renting attractive went often to the theatre and
and her grandfather was a Gordon, who went on to run Joan Court was openly Gibson, Gavin Drewry, Louis Italian villas where family and cinema. She saw a lot of old
former mayor of Cambridge. It Thomson Newspapers when they lesbian at a time when this was Blom Cooper and Ivor Burton friends could join them. friends like Frances Jeffries,
was a comfortable upbringing, owned the Times: Vladimir Raitz, less accepted, and she had spent among others. At the heart of Politically, times had changed, John White, Elizabeth Monkhouse
and Joan spent a fair bit of time who founded Horizon holidays time working with hillbillies in the department was Mac’s and after much soul-searching and Leonie Stevens, and
living with her grandparents. and pretty much invented the the Appalachians. She also formidable secretary – a tough they joined the SDP when it regularly visited her siblings
She had two younger siblings, package holiday; Pat and cemented her place in the chainsmoker called Madge. was launched and subsequently Gordon and Diana.
Gordon and Diana. Frances Jeffries; John and Beales family’s affections by Things changed for both the Liberal Democrats, for whom She continued to travel, for
She went to the Perse School Dorothy White; the Gregories, buying the tickets that enabled Joan and Mick in the early Joan hosted summer parties at example with Diana to Gran
in Cambridge and did well in and Lutz and Pam Haber. Caroline, Peter and the two 1980s. Mick lost his job at Bigwood Road. Canaria amongst other places,
her exams. But by the time she They also made many friends Joans to see the Beatles at the Laings and soon after that it Mick died in 1994 and from and with Mary to Jordan. In her
had finished her schooling, her through the Labour Party, the Finsbury Park Astoria. was announced that Bedford this point, although she kept later years she moved to
feisty independent spirit had Fabian Society in particular, at a Joan’s next career move was College would move out of busy, Joan’s life was never as Worthing and then Brighton.
become evident, and when asked time when the Fabians were a to go to Bedford College where London. They both decided the happy or rewarding. She played Peter and Jeremy were able to
whether she wanted to go to hugely influential source of she ran the Social Work unit time had come to retire. Peter an active part in the life of be with her throughout her final
Oxford or Cambridge she said progressive thinking. It was an within Mac McGregor’s Sociology and Jeremy were grown up and Hampstead Garden Suburb – days and her death was peaceful
she would prefer to go to the intellectual hothouse, within Department. She prided herself starting their own families. Mick becoming a school governor after a very full 97 years.
London School of Economics. which Joan flourished. on creating rounded social and Joan kept themselves fit and an active member of the RUPERT MORRIS
This seems to have been The Beales family remained
prompted less by her choice of close when Joan and Mick JOAN: A MEMORY (something to do with an apple seemed to be a bit of plant been moved out, the fitted carpet
subject matter than her desire settled on the Suburb in Bigwood Joan was a dear friend and I tree and a garage). My family poking out from behind the rolled back as far as possible
to leave what she considered to Road. Enid, Taffy’s sister, moved missed her dreadfully when she stories didn’t get so much of a books. I looked closer. Joan and most of the floorboards
be provincial life and experience in nearby with her husband moved out of the Suburb. Quite look in, but she was great fun to came back and I pointed out removed. There were fuchsia
the challenge and excitement Eric, followed by Lance and often we used to share a bottle talk to and we laughed a lot. the curiosity. We moved a few shoots growing underneath the
of the big city. Taffy – whereupon Bigwood of wine, some little cheesy And then there was the books… we moved some more. entire room and making for the
Ironically, no sooner had she Road absorbed many of Lance’s biscuits, and all sorts of stories. incident with the fuchsia. Joan’s Apparently a whole plant was dining room beyond.
won a place at LSE than she found books. Other frequent visitors How Joan learned to drive in a house in Bigwood Road had a growing up inside the bay. Fuchsias are very soft plants,
herself back in Cambridge as were Mick’s siblings Philip and hearse (she never explained big bay window in the sitting Once I’d looked, it was obvious easily broken, and you would
the LSE was evacuated there to Mary, as well as Joan’s sister why), the scandalous tale of her room with fitted bookshelves from where I had been sitting never imagine one plant could
avoid the German bombs that Diana and their growing families. father-in-law and the bottle of under the window, and outside but Joan would never have seen cause so much damage. Joan
were falling on London. This Old photographs capture drink in the sideboard (if only I a large fuchsia. One evening the plant from her usual chair. stood in the doorway surveying
was where she met Mick Beales, many gatherings of family and could remember the whole story), Joan went out to the kitchen for I was invited back the next the scene of devastation. “It’s
a fellow-student at the LSE, at a friends with adults, children and all the details of her long more wine and I looked idly at week after her builder had been all your fault,” she said crossly.
dance, probably at the beginning and dogs enjoying themselves. running feud with the Trust the shelves. Strangely there called in. Armchairs and sofa had GEORGINA MALCOLM
of 1940. The adults would usually drink
It was by pure chance that wine, and occasionally there
they found themselves dancing was dancing. Joan loved to Mary Caroline Tyler (née Southcombe) 1921-2016
opposite each other. Their eyes dance and she often told the
met, they fell in step, and an story of how their beloved ambitions local. Pat served on virus (especially influenza) in
enduring love affair had begun. Labrador Max would get jealous both Hendon and Barnet Councils, utero was a causative factor. Her
In November of that year, Joan if she danced with any man and on the HGS Trust, while friend Dr Josephine Bruegel of
had a terrifying wait for Mick’s other than Mick. Mary narrowly failed to be Temple Fortune Lane helped
return to Cambridge from In 1952 Peter was born, elected to represent the Childs her in this significant and
Coventry, which was the subject followed by Jeremy in 1956. Hill ward. Mary spent years complex work, which pre-dated
of one of the most devastating Joan and Mick were common- fighting the communists in the the availability of statistical
bombing raids of the war. sense parents, who cared about London Co-operative Society. She packages for home computers.
They got married in 1941, a their children’s academic was also the lone demonstrator This research was published.
wonderfully happy marriage that achievements, but left them to outside the Russian Embassy Mary and Pat spent many
lasted for more than 50 years, sort a lot of other things out for when their tanks rolled into years of retirement enjoying
until Mick’s death in 1994. Joan themselves. Certainly, Joan was Budapest in 1956 while huge time in the Suburb, and in the
got on exceptionally well with never going to abandon her own crowds were in Trafalgar Square Dordogne with many Suburb
Mick’s parents, Lance and Taffy, excellent career in psychiatric protesting against Suez. Pat friends. After the loss of her
and they lived together when social work. made his career in the Law. husband and all her close
she and Mick moved back to It had begun during the war Mary campaigned for a 1972 Suburb friends, especially John
Finchley just after the war, to when Mick was an engineer in Labour Party Conference resolution White, Dorothy White OBE and
Bibsworth House, the family home. Coventry and she, at only 21, on Home Responsibility Payments Barbara Taylor, Mary returned to
Lance Beales was an influential became head of welfare in a for mothers (with much valued the Dorset and Somerset border.
social historian, and Taffy a Hawker Siddeley factory, help from Frank Field in his She downsized to near her
thoroughly progressive woman. helping the women especially Child Poverty Action Group youngest daughter (the award
Mick’s elder brother Philip was to adjust to the big changes in days) – this evolved into the Tax winning jeweller Liz Tyler) and
to become a leading surgeon, their lives. Credit system. her Milborne Port birthplace.
specialising in the treatment She built on this experience For many years Mary worked She lived to meet her first
of deafness. when she began working in Barnet with the National Schizophrenia great grand-daughter and great
Joan and Mick had a very and the major new estate of Fellowship, creating and success- grandson as well as nine
LSE-based social group – many Borehamwood as a psychiatric Mary was born into a family of decades she would only talk of fully analysing a questionnaire grandchildren. She died at 95 in
of whom moved to Hampstead social worker, with Peter Somerset glovers. Sadly, aged 10, her boring wartime “office work”. of nearly 100 families who had her own home with her family,
she lost her father. Largely
Later we discovered that
Garden Suburb in the 1950s. Gregory, under Dr Mannheim. raised by servants, she became a Diana Clark and John Lloyd had experience of the disease. She still in active contact with her
Among these friends were Mac When Dr Mannheim stepped committed socialist in her also worked there and would make found statistically significant friends at the Golders Green
and Nell McGregor (he was one down, she decided to move on evidence that there were (at Unitarians, less than a month after
of the foremost social scientists and became a research worker teenage years, much to the second marriages in the Suburb least) two distinctively different celebrating her birthday with
horror of the remaining members
together. At the end of the war
of his day, later Lord McGregor, with Donald West. He was of her family. A chaperoned she returned to Cambridge where groups of patients. over 30 members of the family.
Chairman of the Press Complaints doing research on Juvenile visit to Paris on leaving school she met Pat (FL Tyler) whilst There was highly suggestive CAROLINE, LIZ,
Commission among other things); Delinquency and Criminality in evidence that exposure to a ROSALIND & BERNARD
resulted in a romantic attachment secretary of the International
to an Hungarian diplomat Students Association: he was
which meant that she nearly Secretary of the Cambridge BRILL OWEN
CHARTERED ARCHITECTS
became trapped in France at the University Labour Club. We are able to offer a complete
G Cohen outbreak of hostilities. study International Socialist Students’ completion helping you to create
Pat followed her to an
service from conception to
to
Mary
went
ANTIQUE SILVER Philosophy at the University of Conference in Czechoslovakia a unique home that fulfils your
London in the autumn of 1939
in 1947 – after she had returned
needs
with the pioneering professor from a disappointing trip to
Susan Stebbing (author of Hungary where there was no Contact us for a free no obligation
consultation on
Thinking to some Purpose). food. They lived at 2 Corringway 0
0208 349 0037208 349 0037
We wish to purchase items of silver in any Bedford College was evacuated from 1948 to 2010, although Pat Or email at
to Cambridge where she died in 2008, and paid just £4,000
condition. As a long standing resident of the experienced the humiliation of for their six-bedroom house. architects@brillowen.co.uk
View our recent work at
Suburb, Gideon Cohen is happy to view Wittgenstein refusing to lecture Pat and Mary enjoyed a www.brillowen.co.uk
female students. wonderfully happy marriage and
your silverware at home and will make an On graduating she was spent over 60 years as the main-
offer to purchase, free of any obligation. recruited directly into Bletchley stay of the Hendon South and We are Chartered
Park with many other future Hampstead Garden Suburb Branch Architects based in
Suburb residents including her Labour Party. Pat had been a North London
17 The London Silver Vaults good friend Rhona Wood scholarship boy at St Albans specialising in
53-64 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1QT (Obituary, Suburb News 128). School and Cambridge and he refurbishments,
020 7404 1425 She described how she was told was keen to make a career in extensions and
new build houses
enquiries@gcohen.co.uk (with a pistol on the desk in Politics; he stood for Labour at new build houses
and flats within
www.gcohen.co.uk front of her), that any mention Knutsford in the 1945 election. conservation areas
of the code-breaking could be The arrival of four children and to listed
deemed to be too important for in the next 10 years – all home buildings.
the courts to be involved, so for births – kept their political
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