Joy was brought up by Christian parents who took her to the local Anglican church, where later she became a choir member and was confirmed. She was teaching when she made a deeper personal commitment to God and her experience of Him has developed through the years.
As a twenty-five year old she gained a distinction teaching certificate by studying at a mature students’ teacher training college. She had left High School, despite her academic success, through illness, and worked in a shop and a library first. After five years of teaching, including RE, she returned to college and gained a first class honours Education Degree and then went on to the University of Leicester where she studied English and Drama, her areas of responsibility in Middle School, and was awarded an MA. She felt it was the Lord’s help and guidance that had enabled her to do this. Much later she added an MA in Education and an LTCL – a diploma in Teaching English to Students of Other Languages, to her qualifications. These enabled her to become an examiner in ESOL as well as Drama for an international company (Trinity) and so travel abroad and meet interesting young and older people of differing nationalities and attend varied Christian churches.
In the late eighties, when asking God how she could contribute to church life the surprising answer was “Preach!” yet through being asked to give talks and being involved in a Prayer Ministry Team and helping to plan some services she then realised she could help people in this new way after all. On telling Revd Andrew Daunton-Fear she had offered herself for Reader ministry his reply was, “About time too!” She studied part time for three years through the Peterborough Diocesan training scheme to become a Reader in 2011. She loves studying the Bible and is interested also in history and poetry. She likes the countryside and walking, especially in high hills and mountains, has been a delight.